James Clavell Quotes

45 Sourced Quotes

God gives us intelligence to uncover the wonders of nature. Without the gift, nothing is possible.

James Clavell
The search for the truth is the most important work in the whole world — and the most dangerous.

James Clavell
I'm going to work hard not to have any wrong thoughts!

James Clavell
Just a moment, children — what does "pledge" mean?

James Clavell
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 — training — is about.

James Clavell
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
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
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
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
Perhaps my mommy should go back to school. Perhaps she should.

James Clavell
Your old teacher never explained anything to you? I don't think that was very good. Not to explain. You can always ask me anything. That's what a real teacher should do.

James Clavell
It is a very pretty flag. … I wish I could have a piece of it. I know! If it's so important, I think we should all have a piece of it. Don't you? … Now we should decide — who should be allowed to cut the first piece off!

James Clavell
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.

James Clavell
By universal custom, your enemy is never more polite than when he is planning or has planned your destruction.

James Clavell
What are clouds, but an excuse for the sky? What is life, but an escape from death?

James Clavell
When you have an enemy it is wise to know his ways. The King knew as much about Grey as any man could know about another.

James Clavell
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
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
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
What can I do to help thee?" he asked. "Believe there is a tomorrow.

James Clavell
First she studied her husband's flower arrangement. He had chosen the blossom of a single white wild rose and put a single pearl of water on the green leaf, and set it on red stones. Autumn is coming, he was suggesting with the flower, talking through the flower, do not weep for the time of fall, the time of dying when the earth begins to sleep; enjoy the time of beginning again and experience the glorious cool of the autumn air on this summer evening... soon the tear will vanish and the rose, only the stones will remain — soon you and I will vanish and only the stones will remain.

James Clavell
I get so scared sometimes. The suddenness of our age! Electronics, rockets, earth satellites, supersonic flight, and now this. It's not so much who invents them. It's the fact they exist. … Everything's going so fast, I'm just not ready to take it all in. It's, it's all so quick

James Clavell
Wars are fought by teenagers, you realize that. They really ought to be fought by the politicians and old people who start these wars.

James Clavell
Your daddy had to go back to school a little. He had some strange thoughts — and he wanted other grown-ups to believe them. It's not right for others to believe wrong thoughts, is it?

James Clavell
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.

James Clavell
I'm going to get that bloody bastard if I die in the attempt.

James Clavell
All stories have a beginning, a middle and an ending, and if they're any good, the ending is a beginning.

James Clavell
Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life.

James Clavell
I write short stories. They may appear big in size, but when you consider it, they're four or five novels in one. … In return for picking up one of my books, I'm trying to give them value for their money. … the goal of writing any book is to create the illusion that what you are reading is reality and you're part of it.

James Clavell
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