Gary Jennings Quotes

#1. I contend, most seriously, that there is a real need for a good, thick, complete-as-possible dictionary of 'What People Used to Call Things.'

Gary Jennings

#2. I'm a writer. I write not only for a living, I write because I'm a writer.

Gary Jennings

#3. I write novels, mostly historical ones, and I try hard to keep them accurate as to historical facts, milieu and flavor.

Gary Jennings

#4. Everybody has done something about Marco Polo. It's the tiredest, most trite and worked-over subject in the world, and that was why it appealed to me, because I wanted to do something really new and different about something that had been worked over all these centuries, and I think I did.

Gary Jennings

#5. Of all that I have possessed in my life, my memories are the only things remaining to me. Indeed, I believe that memories are the only real treasure any human can hope to hold always.

Gary Jennings

#6. The wise man shall pass into strange countries, and good and evil shall he try in all things.

Gary Jennings

#7. If a man is to have a fault, it should be a passionate one, like insatiable curiosity. It would be a pity to be damned for something paltry.

Gary Jennings

#8. I could list hundreds of words I've come up against in the course of my work that did not exist in the era of which I was writing and for which I never could find a suitably old-time, archaic or obsolete substitute.

Gary Jennings

#9. To get into Afghanistan, I bribed my way into a camel caravan of smugglers.

Gary Jennings

#10. He also made all Muslims publicly forswear that part of their Holy Quran which permits them to dupe, cheat and kill all who are not of Islam.

Gary Jennings

#11. I learned to interpret the ancient pictograph codices and read Nahuatl, the Aztec language.

Gary Jennings

#12. In the 20th century alone, there have been 1,600 books about the circus. My adding one more would be superfluous unless I do something totally new and different.

Gary Jennings

#13. When I was in Thailand, I went into the up-country because Marco Polo didn't get down into the flesh pots of Bangkok because they didn't exist in those days.

Gary Jennings

#14. I starved and slept on park benches. I wrapped myself in the pages of my manuscript to keep warm. For two and a half years I took odd jobs; nothing was going to deter me.

Gary Jennings

#15. When I got back to Madison Avenue, I realized that copywriters made more than artists, so I switched.

Gary Jennings

#16. A man will believe anything that does not cost him anything," said

Gary Jennings

#17. Find a Way or Make a Way

Gary Jennings

#18. Collect adventures and experiences to reminisce about ... go to far places, meet new people, eat exotic foods, enjoy all varieties of women, look on unfamiliar landscapes, see new things.

Gary Jennings