A Quote by James A. Michener

I would suppose I learned how to write when I was very young indeed. When I read a child's book about the Trojan War and decided that the Greeks were really a bunch of frauds with their tricky horses and the terrible things they did, stealing one another's wives, and so on, so at that very early age, I re-wrote the ending of the Iliad so that the Trojans won. And boy, Achilles and Ajax got what they wanted, believe me. And thereafter, at frequent intervals, I would write something. It was really quite extraordinary. Never of very high merit, but the daringness of it was.
I started to read at a very early age, and I just thought that books and reading were really the most wonderful thing that life had to offer. I think I wrote my very first piece of fiction at the age of 12, but then I didn't write any more for quite a long time.
I always wrote from a very young age, literally from the time I learned how to read and write.
I grew up in a very polite family, and I suppose my parents were both very polite, and from the time I was a young boy, I suspected that there were passions seething underneath and not being mentioned, and that was something that came to preoccupy me. Somehow I had some drive to write down what people might really be thinking.
With the 'Hazelwood High' trilogy, I wasn't sure I was writing a trilogy. I would just write one book, then another, and then another, because the young adults who wrote me told me that they wanted to read more.
It's really hard to teach me anything. I can't read music. I never learned how to read music. I read books about things and try to learn - I don't like to learn from anybody. Later on I would, once I'd get the hang of things. Like I ride horses, I'm good at that, Western riding. I learned all about it reading and studying. I'm always learning about horses, I like that.
I wrote lots of scripts that never got made and they were terrible. I thought they were good at the time. You can't write two scripts and expect your career to take off. Keep writing. Be you. Be original. A lot of people go for a genre, which is fine if you can do that really well, but we all have such layered histories. We all come from a unique background. Write about your past, write about you. Or make stuff up, but make it about something that really matters.
I didn't learn how to read and write until pretty late, and it was this very mysterious, incredible thing, like driving, that I didn't get to do. And then I started writing things down on little scraps of paper and I would hide them. I would write the year on them and then I would stuff them in a drawer somewhere. But I didn't start to really read until about eight. I'm dyslexic, so it took a long time.
I can't even begin to describe how I miss him. He always supported me in everything I did. He was a very wise man and I realised at an early age I could learn a lot from him. He always gave me the right answer. But above all he was a very easy-going guy and all he wanted was to be my best friend. I'm an only child and so he shared everything with me. Of course he was very young to die and I was very young to lose a father. But there was nothing left unsaid between us.
I've been very lucky. There were times when I was afraid I would never sell another book, but I never doubted I'd write another book.
I was into music from a very early age, and I was also - I don't really talk about this that much - really into horses. I learned a lot about rhythm and about voice from that.
It didn't occur to me that my books would be widely read at all, and that enabled me to write anything I wanted to. And even once I realized that they were being read, I still wrote as if I were writing in secret. That's how one has to write anyway--in secret.
I wanted to be a novelist from a very early age - 11 or 12 - but I don't think I ever thought I would write historical fiction. I never thought I might write academic history because I simply wasn't good enough!
Most writers need to write. I write for money, really. If I won the lottery, I would never write another word. I would rather read.
I thought that if I were going into old age I would want to do what [Giuseppe] Verdi did, which is to write extraordinary things, and to really find myself.
Having lots of members of my family who were in ministry in one form or another, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that at quite an early age, I was very, very conscious personally of the love of God.
Really it's all about what's inside the Superman suit. How you feel about yourself when you put that on because it's very revealing and very imposing if worn with confidence, I suppose. The first time I wore it, I didn't have that as much. I hadn't really trained any, yet. I hadn't read the script, I hadn't really worked on the character at that point. And I was standing around with a room full of costume designers and everybody was judging me right away and going, "Don't make your judgment on it, if this is Superman quite yet or not," because I hadn't done all the work that I would later do.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!