James Clavell Quotes

I'll thank you to remember that not so many years ago men were burned at the stake just for saying the earth went round the sun!

Let's compete freely. Goddam tariffs! Free trade and free seas — that's what's right!

He had long since discovered that peaceful sleep could provide the answer to most puzzles, and if not, what did it really matter? Wasn’t life just a dewdrop within a dewdrop?

Ronin were landless or masterless peasant-soldiers or samurai who, through dishonor or the loss of their masters, were forced to wander the land until some other lord would accept their services.

You live by the lash and you'll die by it.

Gods are like people. They believe anything if you tell them right way.

The more I know, the more sure I am I know so little. The eternal paradox.

You must learn to control the filth of your tongue, my son. It will send you to hell.

Isn't it only laughter we can stay human?

Isn't man but a blossom taken by the wind, and only the mountains and the sea and the stars and this Land of the Gods real and everlasting?

Karma is the beginning of knowledge. Next is patience. Patience is very important. The strong are the patient ones, Anjin-san. patience means holding back your inclination to the seven emotions: hate, adoration, joy, anxiety, anger, grief, fear. If you don't give way to the seven, you're patient, then you'll soon understand all manner of things and be in harmony with Eternity.

Their souls touch and I seem to be more aware of God because of it.

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

Changi was set like a pearl on the eastern tip of Singapore Island, iridescent under the bowl of tropical skies. It stood on a slight rise and around it was a belt of green, and farther off the green gave way to the blue-green seas and the seas to infinity of horizon. Closer, Changi lost its beauty and became what it was — an obscene forbidding prison. Cellblocks surrounded by sun-baked courtyards surrounded by towering walls. Inside the walls, inside the cellblocks, story on story, were cells for two thousand prisoners at capacity. Now, in the cells and in the passageways and in every nook and cranny lived some eight thousand men. ... These men too were criminals. Their crime was vast. They had lost a war. And they had lived.

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.