James Clavell Quotes

Of what real value is a title? The power is the only important thing

Sometimes it's wiser to give a quarry extra line — that's how to catch a fish, neh?

A new era requires clear thinking about the meaning of honor.

Beyond the castle walls, the city lay in almost total darkness. Above, the moon was pallid and misted. It was a brooding, darkling night. And, it seemed to him, doom walked the heavens.

those who are young will take risks which even the devil would pass by.

Why is it there is always such violence between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law? Doesn't daughter-in-law, in time, become mother-in-law? Why does she then always treat her own daughter-in-law to a lashing tongue and make her life a misery, and why does that girl do the same in her turn? Doesn't anyone learn?

For a woman, old age is never pretty.

Listen, if you want peace you must learn to drink cha from an empty cup.

Men need to whisper secrets, Lady. That’s what makes them different from us – they need to share secrets, but we women only reveal them to gain an advantage.

I'm saying that some men are saints. Some are happy being meek and humble and unambitious. Some men are born content to be second-best.

Because Johnny was especially clever I think we should make him monitor for the whole week. Don't you?

Patience means restraining yourself. There are seven emotions, Joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear, and hate. If a man doesn't give way to these, he's patient. I'm not as strong as I might be but I'm patient.

For the last time: ‘The law may upset reason but reason may never upset the law, or our whole society will shred like an old tatami.

All his life he had heard legends told among pilots and sailormen about the incredible riches of Portugal's secret empire in the East, how they had by now converted the heathens to Catholicism and so held them in bondage, where gold was as cheap as pig iron, and emeralds, rubies, diamonds, and sapphires as plentiful as pebbles on a beach. If the Catholic part's true, he told himself, perhaps the rest is too.

First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.