I now believe this without question: Income, position, the opinions of one’s friends, the judgments of one’s peers, and all the other traditional criteria by which human beings are judged are for the birds. The only question is — can you hang on through the crap they throw at you and not lose your freedom or your good sense.

~ James Michener

I have recently decided that the constructive work of the world is done by an appallingly small percentage of the population. The rest simply don’t give a damn, or they grow tired, or they fail to acquire when young the ideas that would vitalize them for the long decades.

I am not saying that such people don’t matter; they are among the most precious items on the earth. But they cannot be depended upon to either generate necessary new ideas or to put them into operation if someone else generates them.

Therefore, those men and women who do have the energy to form new constructs and new ways to implement them must do the work of many. I believe it to be an honorable aspiration to want to be among the creators.

~ James Michener

We all worry about wasting time, about the years sliding past, about what we intend to do with our lives. We shouldn’t — for there there is a divine irrelevance in the universe that defies calculation. Many men and women win through to a sense of greatness in their lives only by first stumbling and fumbling their way into patterns that gratify them and allow them to utilize their endowments to the maximum.

~ James Michener