James Clavell
James Clavell
James Clavell, born Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell, was an Australian-born Britishnovelist, screenwriter, director, and World War II veteran and prisoner of war. Clavell is best known for his epic Asian Saga series of novels and their televised adaptations, along with such films as The Great Escapeand To Sir, with Love...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 October 1924
CountryAustralia
wise alive events
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.
years doe scarcity
The scarcity of years does not necessitate lack of wisdom.
beautiful karma blessed
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.
karma clever husband
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.
stars taken men
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?
kings luck together
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.
sky clouds excuse
What are clouds, but an excuse for the sky? What is life, but an escape from death?
atheist atheism firsts
First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.
laughter humans
Isn't it only laughter we can stay human?
enemy planning destruction
.., by universal custom, your enemy is never more polite than when he is planning or has planned your destruction.
stupid men brave
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?
home night men
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.
stupid emotion stranger
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.
sorry apology second-chance
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.