Tales of the South Pacific Quotes

“I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific. The way it actually was. The endless ocean. The infinite specks of coral we called islands. Coconut palms nodding gracefully toward the ocean. Reefs upon which waves broke into spray, and inner lagoons, lovely beyond description. I wish I could tell you about the sweating jungle, the full moon rising behind the volcanoes, and the waiting. The waiting. The timeless, repetitive waiting.”
― James A. Michener, Tales of the South Pacific

“Yet there before me lay almost three hundred Americans who thought as I had thought. They could not die. But there were the white crosses. I was appalled by the relentless manner in which one dead plus one dead plus one dead add up to three white crosses. If you sit at home and read that two hundred and eighty-one men die in taking an island, the number is only a symbol for the mind to classify. But when you stand at the white crosses, the two hundred and eighty-one dead become men: the sons, the husbands, and the lovers.”
― James A. Michener, Tales of the South Pacific

“Hers was the heart-hunger that has sent people of all ages in search of new thoughts and deeper perceptions.”
― James A. Michener, Tales of the South Pacific

“The world is not pretty. It's only the hard work of some people that makes it so.”
― James A. Michener, Tales of the South Pacific