I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.

You have to be eligible for luck to strike, and I think that's a matter of education and preparation, and character and all the other solid attributes that sometimes people laugh at.

It heartens me to think of Verdi who composed thundering operas in his eighties; Michelangelo who did fine work in his ninetieth year, and Titian, who painted better than ever in his one hundredth.

A group of two dozen nurses completely surrounded by 100,000 unattached American men.

The really great writers are people like Emily Brontë who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.

The job of a storyteller is to tell stories, and I have concentrated on that obligation.

I had learned volleyball in the Navy, where all the captains and admirals wanted to be spikers, and I found then that a man who can subdue his own desires and master the art of serving others can make himself invaluable. In choosing sides the team captain always chose the good spikers on the first and second choice, but then the spikers would grab his arm and whisper, 'Take Michener.' I was never chosen lower than third, because I was needed. I wasn't good, but I was faithful.