Top 100 Clavell Quotes
#1. You need a good James Clavell novel, I think, to make a good miniseries.
Noah Hawley
#2. You must learn to control the filth of your tongue, my son. It will send you to hell.
James Clavell
#3. They put me with a blind monk who taught me how to massage and to see again with my fingers. Now my fingers tell me more than my eyes used to, I think.
James Clavell
#4. Wars are fought by teenagers, you realize that. They really ought to be fought by the politicians and old people who start these wars. (Interview with Don Swaim of CBS Radio-1986)
James Clavell
#5. Three big islands, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu? And thousands of little ones. There's another island far to the north - some say it's the mainland - called Hokkaido, but only hairy natives
James Clavell
#6. There is no need to fear. We are all in God's hands.
James Clavell
#7. Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life.
James Clavell
#8. When a man's pride is injured, death is a small price to repay the insult.
James Clavell
#9. 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.
James Clavell
#10. It's good for a man to get drunk once in a while. It releases all the evil spirits.
James Clavell
#11. What can I do to help thee?" he asked.
"Believe there is a tomorrow.
James Clavell
#12. You don't know for certain about God until you're dead.
James Clavell
#13. Life and death are the same ... Leave karma to karma.
James Clavell
#14. Perhaps that is why we love life so much, Anjin-san. You see, we have to. Death is part of our air and sea and earth. You should know, Anjin-san, in this Land of Tears, death is our heritage.
James Clavell
#15. The earth's round, like an orange, but this map is like its skin, cut off in ovals, north to south, laid flat and stretched a bit at the top and bottom. A Dutchman called Mercator invented the way to do this accurately twenty years ago. It's the first accurate world map.
James Clavell
#16. That's the first rule of survival in enemy waters: volunteer nothing.
James Clavell
#17. The law may upset reason but reason may never upset the law, or our whole society will shred like an old tatami. The law may be used to confound reason, reason must certainly not be used to overthrow the law.
James Clavell
#18. Sometimes it's wiser to give a quarry extra line
that's how to catch a fish, neh?
James Clavell
#19. We have a saying that time has no single measure, that time can be like frost or lightning or a tear or siege or storm or sunset, or even like a rock.
James Clavell
#20. 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!
James Clavell
#21. Listen, if you want peace you must learn to drink cha from an empty cup.
James Clavell
#22. Patience is important for a man, vital for a leader
James Clavell
#23. If you're a sailor, best not know how to swim. Swimming only prolongs the inevitable - if the sea wants you and your time has come.
James Clavell
#24. His mind docketing the important things for future transcription.
James Clavell
#25. You never know ... that's what makes life interesting.
James Clavell
#26. Godrot opium, he thought. But he knew that his life was inexorably tied to opium - and that without it neither The Noble House nor the British Empire could exist.
James Clavell
#27. All stories have a beginning, a middle and an ending, and if they're any good, the ending is a beginning.
James Clavell
#28. Isn't it only through laughter that we become one with the gods and thus can endure life and can overcome all the horror and waste and suffering here on earth? ... Isn't it only through laughter we can stay human?
James Clavell
#29. Like dew I was born
Like dew I vanish
..and all that I have ever done
Is but a dream
Within a dream
James Clavell
#30. In war and in peace, a good enemy can be more valuable than a good ally.
James Clavell
#33. Isn't man but a blossom taken by wind, and only the mountains and the sea and the stars and this land of the gods everlasting?
James Clavell
#34. Changi for me - of course it's easy to be wise after the event, and to discuss it cleverly after the event - was about as near as you can get to being dead and still be alive.
James Clavell
#35. My captain will help you be very quick. Within three sticks. The unit of time was the time it took for a standard stick of incense to smolder away, approximately one hour for one stick.
James Clavell
#37. 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.
James Clavell
#38. If the Truth is already clear, what is the use of meditation?' " " 'And if the Truth is hidden?' " Toranaga said. " 'It's already clear,' " Hiro-matsu answered correctly. The quotation was from the ancient Tantric Buddhist teacher, Saraha.
James Clavell
#40. The more I know, the more sure I am I know so little. The eternal paradox.
James Clavell
#41. Reminding himself to remember forever that the pen's a long arm from the grave.
James Clavell
#42. I send you my laughter. May Buddha bless thee and thine.
James Clavell
#44. Did. But he was glad her head was deep in his shoulder greatcoat. Again he craned around and caught sight of it, slightly aft and lying flat in the water, now seeming to
James Clavell
#45. How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.
James Clavell
#46. Love is a Christian word, Anjin-san. Love is a Christian thought, a Christian ideal. We have no word for 'love' as I understand you to mean it. Duty, loyalty, honor, respect, desire, those words and thoughts are what we have, all that we need.
James Clavell
#47. By universal custom, your enemy is never more polite than when he is planning or has planned your destruction.
James Clavell
#48. So easy now that Elder Sister has explained to her what all young girls in houses are taught - that with care and meticulous acting and tears of pretended pain and fear, and the final modest telltale stains cautiously placed, a girl can, if necessary, be virgin ten times for ten different men.
James Clavell
#49. What you do with strangers is ignore them for. No second chance, no sorry I did it, never accept an apology, but never, ever get angry with strangers.
James Clavell
#50. Only merchants have money to waste, and what are they but parasites who create nothing, grow nothing, make nothing but feed off another's labor?
James Clavell
#52. 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?
James Clavell
#53. It's always important to take time to study men
important men. Friends and enemies.
James Clavell
#54. You can find friends in manure, sometimes, my son.
James Clavell
#55. Who knows what tomorrow will bring
Tomorrow is in the hands of God
Tomorrow will be a lovely day.
James Clavell
#56. The search for the truth is the most important work in the whole world, and the most dangerous.
James Clavell
#58. Sometimes full agreements, delicate agreements, should not be reduced into writing.
James Clavell
#60. First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.
James Clavell
#61. Women don't have wisdom or knowledge in political things.
James Clavell
#62. It is simple to catch a man, all you need to know is the right bait.
James Clavell
#63. A man's fate is a man's fate and life is but an illusion.
James Clavell
#64. So much of "normal, civilized" life is bull that you can't imagine ... What frightens you, doesn't frighten me, what frightens me, you'd laugh at.
James Clavell
#65. What are clouds, but an excuse for the sky? What is life, but an escape from death?
James Clavell
#66. Without privacy, civilized life could not exist.
James Clavell
#67. Anger is something you should only vent in front of intimates, and friends and relations. Never be angry in front of strangers because you lose face.
James Clavell
#68. A man has a false heart in his mouth for all the world to see, another in his breast to show all his special friends and his family, and the real one, the true one, the secret one, which is not known to anyone except himself alone.
James Clavell
#69. Guard yourself and your conscience no one else will and know that a bad decision at the right time can destroy you far more surely than any bullet!
James Clavell
#70. Of what real value is a title? The power is the only important thing
James Clavell
#72. It's a saying they have, that a man has a false heart in his mouth for the world to see, another in his breast to show to his special friends and his family, and the real one, the true one, the secret one, which is never known to anyone except to himself alone, hidden only God knows where.
James Clavell
#73. Kogo, the goshawk, fluttered on his wrist and settled herself, watching him. Toranaga smiled at her. I did not choose to be what I am. It is my karma.
James Clavell
#75. Damn what you like, Pieterzoon. But don't damn liquor. It's the stuff of life!
James Clavell
#77. Secrets never leave you in peace, however much you wish or pray.
James Clavell
#78. How can a man be so brave and so stupid, so gentle and so cruel, so warming and so detestable
all at the same time?
James Clavell
#79. Christianity is a religion. Not a political ideology.
James Clavell
#80. And Adam ruled, for he was the King. Until the day his will to be King deserted him. Then he died, food for a stronger. And the strongest was always the King, not by strength alone, but King by cunning and luck and strength together. Among the rats.
James Clavell
#82. The point is we both know life and understand death - and both believe treatment in hell and everywhere else depends on money.
James Clavell
#83. There is no dignity for either the sufferer or the torturer
James Clavell
#84. There are seven emotions, neh? Joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear, and hate. If a man doesn't give way to these, he's patient. I'm
James Clavell
#85. And damned nomads in Mesopotamia have again cut the telegraph - another expeditionary force is being organized to deal with them once and for all!
James Clavell
#86. God gives us intelligence to uncover the wonders of nature. Without the gift, nothing is possible.
James Clavell
#87. Changi became my university instead of my prison ... Among the inmates there were experts in all walks of life - the high and the low roads. I studied and absorbed everything I could from physics to counterfeiting, but most of all I learned the art of surviving.
James Clavell
#88. Why is she afraid?" he asked. "She's not Anjin-san. Just a little nervous. Please excuse her. She's never seen a foreigner close to before." "Tell her when the moon's full, barbarians sprout horns and fire comes out of our mouths like dragons.
James Clavell
#89. Men don't apologize to ladies. Whatever they do is correct.
James Clavell
#90. You're a cruel, cold-gutted, heartless bastard but you've got majesty, no doubt about that.
James Clavell
#91. To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline and training is all about.
James Clavell
#93. It's only Christian to be chivalrous to your enemies.
James Clavell
#94. Horses are far worse than men for treachery...
James Clavell
#95. The scarcity of years does not necessitate lack of wisdom.
James Clavell
#96. The sun dances in her and she has an immense joy of life
James Clavell
#98. Gods are like people. They believe anything if you tell them right way.
James Clavell
#99. Anger is one of the most intimate of emotions and to expose it to strangers is one of the most stupid and sickening things to do. Never get angry with strangers because they are strangers.
James Clavell
#100. Death and life are the same thing. This is the immutable law of nature.
James Clavell
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