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
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.
laughter suffering earth
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?
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.
art experts inmates
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.
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?
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.
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.
years doe scarcity
The scarcity of years does not necessitate lack of wisdom.
littles paradox knows
The more I know, the more sure I am I know so little. The eternal paradox.
christian loyalty mean
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.
dignity shoguns sufferers
There is no dignity for either the sufferer or the torturer
decision bullets right-time
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!
beautiful past fleeting
How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.
war teenager people
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)