James Clavell: Trending quotes (page 2)

“The scarcity of years does not necessitate lack of wisdom.”

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

“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.”

“First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.”

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

“There is no dignity for either the sufferer or the torturer”

“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?”

“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.”

“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!”

“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.”

“You must be patient before you criticize.”

“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?”

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

“I'm going to work hard not to have any wrong thoughts!”

“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.”

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

“So much wealth and so much power, Armstrong thought, yet with a little luck, we can bring you down like Humpty-Dumpty…”

“I'm going to pray to our leader every time!”

“All his life he had heard legends told among pilots and sailormen about the incredible riches of Portugal's secret empire in the East, how they had by now converted the heathens to Catholicism and so held them in bondage, where gold was as cheap as pig iron, and emeralds, rubies, diamonds, and sapphires as plentiful as pebbles on a beach.
If the Catholic part's true, he told himself, perhaps the rest is too.”