“Why do millions of people buy James Michener’s books
and why does every bed lamp shine down on his newest title?
Isn’t it because he has spent 40 years coming back from
far journeys and difficult languages, to tell us about other people’s
other ways of life? Other challenges and other lives survived?”
– Ruth Goetz
“I wonder if there has ever been another Spanish writer
who could compress into so few words the agony of life,
as when in Blood Wedding the bridegroom’s mother confesses:
‘Always in my breast there’s a shriek standing tiptoe that I
have to fight back and keep hidden under my shawls.'”
– James Michener,
speaking of Garcia Lorca
in Mexico, 1992