James Clavell Quotations

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.

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.

First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.

Isn't it only laughter we can stay human?

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

Blackthorne, beside the gates, was still turmoiled by his boundless joy at her reprieve and he remembered how his own will had been stretched that night of his near-seppuku, when he had had to get up as a man and walk home as a man unsupported, and became samurai. And he watched her, despising the need for this courage, yet understanding it, even honoring it.

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?

Horses are far worse than men for treachery...

It's always important to take time to study men -- important men. Friends and enemies.

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

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.

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

Christ, it's so good to be alive.

You've committed murder just as much as Hélène did. You killed a fly with a human head, she killed a human with a fly head. If she murdered so did you.

How baffling it was that even the most cunning and clever people would frequently see only what they wanted to see, and would rarely look beyond the thinnest of facades. Or they would ignore reality, dismissing it as the facade. And then, when their whole world fell to pieces...they would tear their topknots or rend their clothes and bewail their karma, blaming gods or kami or luck or their lords or husbands or vassals-anything or anyone-but never themselves.

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?

Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you're here and nothing you do will change that. Today you are alive and here and honored and blessed with good fortune. Look at this suset, it's beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose yourself in it, make yourself one with nature and do not worry about karma, yours, mine, or that of the village.

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.

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?

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.

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.

The scarcity of years does not necessitate lack of wisdom.

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

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.

There is no dignity for either the sufferer or the torturer

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!

How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.

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)

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.

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.

The search for the truth is the most important work in the whole world, and the most dangerous.

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

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.

Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life - Shogun.

Life and death are the same...Leave karma to karma.

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

You never know . . . that's what makes life interesting.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.