Tai-Pan Quotes

“If you're a sailor, best not know how to swim. Swimming only prolongs the inevitable—if the sea wants you and your time has come.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“If you smile when you lose, then you win in life.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“Without trade the world will become what it was once—a hell where only the strongest arm and the heaviest lash was law. The meek will never inherit the earth. Aye, but at least they can be protected by law to live out their lives as they wish.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“Gods are like people. They believe anything if you tell them right way.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“I'll thank you to remember that not so many years ago men were burned at the stake just for saying the earth went round the sun!”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“I'm saying that some men are saints. Some are happy being meek and humble and unambitious. Some men are born content to be second-best.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“Godrot opium, he thought. But he knew that his life was inexorably tied to opium—and that without it neither The Noble House nor the British Empire could exist.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“So easy now that Elder Sister has explained to her what all young girls in houses are taught—that with care and meticulous acting and tears of pretended pain and fear, and the final modest telltale stains cautiously placed, a girl can, if necessary, be virgin ten times for ten different men.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“love is like the sea, sometimes calm and sometimes stormy; it’s dangerous, beautiful, death-dealing, life-giving. But never permanent, everchanging.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“only the emperor among three hundred millions is allowed to use vermilion ink. Imagine that. If Queen Victoria said, ‘From now on, only I am allowed to use vermilion,’ as much as we love her, forty thousand Britons would instantly forswear all ink but vermilion. I would mysel’.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“Then you mean that money is everything?"
"I'm saying that without power you canna be a saint in this day and age. Power for its own sake is a sin. Money for its own sake is a sin.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“Then, alone once more, he split himself into the three persons that all generals of the Church must simultaneously be. First, the anointed Peter, first Bishop of Christ, with all that that spiritually implied. Second, the militant guardian of the Church temporal with all that that implied. And last, just a simple man who believed the teachings of a simple man who was the Son of God.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“The time be gone forever when the like of me’s to suck thy arse ’cause of a poxy title which like as not were gifted first to a king’s whore, a king’s bastard, or buyed by knife in a king’s back.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“Empires are built by young men, Culum. They’re lost by old men.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“Let's compete freely. Goddam tariffs! Free trade and free seas—that's what's right!”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“You live by the lash and you'll die by it.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“all the people have a right to vote, and no single man ever controls the destiny of any nation, either by divine right or by right of stupid votes of a stupid electorate.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“„Слава богу, че вече не съм толкова млад — помисли състрадателно Струан. — Сега знам, че любовта е като морето — понякога спокойна, а понякога бурна. Опасна е, красива, смъртоносна, животворна. Но никога постоянна, а променлива. И уникална само за един кратък миг в очите на времето.”
― Джеймс Клавел, Тай-пан Т.1/2

“With effort, he concentrated on an editorial. It told of widespread industrial unrest in the Midlands and asserted that it was imperative to pay a fair wage for a fair day’s work. Another article lamented that the huge industrial machine of England was operating at only half capacity and cried that greater new markets must be found for the productive wealth it could spew forth; more production meant cheaper goods, increased employment, higher wages. There were news articles that told of tension and war clouds over France and Spain because of the succession to the Spanish throne; Prussia was spreading its tentacles into all the German states to dominate them and a Franco-Prussian confrontation was imminent; there were war clouds over Russia and the Hapsburg Holy Roman Empire; war clouds over the Italian States that wished to throw out the upstart French King of Naples and join together or not to join together, and the Pope, French-supported, was involved in the political arena; there were war clouds over South Africa because the Boers – who had over the last four years trekked out of the Cape Colony to established the Transvaal and the Orange Free State – were now threatening the English colony of Natal and war was expected by the next mail; there were anti-Semitic riots and pogroms throughout Europe; Catholic were fighting against Protestants, Mohammedans against Hindus, against Catholics, against Protestants, and they fighting among themselves; there were Red Indian wars in America, animosity between the Northern and Southern states, animosity between America and Britain over Canada, trouble in Ireland, Sweden, Finland, India, Egypt, the Balkans  . . . ‘Does na matter what you read!’ Struan exploded to no one in particular. ‘The whole world’s mad, by God!”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“The Scots knew that the burning of a cross was a summons to the clan, and to all the kinsmen of all kindred clans: a summons to rally to the cross for battle. And the burning cross was raised only by the chief of the clan. By ancient law, once raised, the burning cross committed the clan to defend the land unto the end of the clan.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“When Brock had caught his breath, he stripped Nagrek and waited until he was conscious. Then he cut away his manhood. And beat him to death.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“to me.” The little box contained Brock’s twenty sovereigns now, and Culum felt guilty again that he had never told Tess of their significance. He had put them into the box after he and Tess had come ashore off White Witch the last time: to remind him about Tyler Brock”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“but I’m convinced this earth will never be at peace until all nations have the English parliamentary system, and all the people have a right to vote, and no single man ever controls the destiny of any nation, either by divine right or by right of stupid votes of a stupid electorate.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“The novels of James Clavell’s world-famous Asian Saga (Shōgun, Tai-Pan, Gai-Jin, King Rat, Noble House, and Whirlwind) were each critically acclaimed major”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“There can only be one Tai-Pan.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“Fallibility in a leader is very trying. Isn’t it? They spill so much of other people’s blood.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“He kowtowed to your knowledge because of your wealth. But without wealth you’ve no breeding. Without breeding you cannot be equal. Without equality you can’t have knowledge. None. I think that’s rather sad.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“hell where only the strongest arm and the heaviest lash was law. The meek will never inherit the earth. Aye, but at least they can be protected by law to live out their lives as they wish. When Ti-sen had had a hundred blows,”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“Just try, Tai-Pan, by God,” she said and glared back at him. He grabbed her swiftly and carried her, struggling, to the bed and flung up her robe and petticoats and gave her a smack on her buttocks that stung his hand and tossed her on the bed. He had never struck her before. May-may flew off the bed at him and viciously raked at his face with her long nails. A lantern crashed to the floor as Struan upended her again and resumed the spanking. She fought out of his grip, and her nails slashed at his eyes, missing by a fraction of an inch, and scoring his face. He caught her wrists and turned her over and tore off her robe and underclothes and smashed her bare buttocks with the flat of his hand. She fought back fiercely, shoving an elbow in his groin and clawing at his face again. Mustering all his strength, he pinned her to the bed, but she slipped her head free and sank her teeth into his forearm. He gasped from the pain and slashed her buttocks again with the flat of his free hand. She bit harder. “By God, you’ll never bite me again,” he said through clenched teeth. Her teeth sank deeper, but he deliberately did not pull his arm away. The pain made his eyes water, but he smashed May-may harder and harder and harder, always on her buttocks, until his hand hurt. At last she released her teeth. “Don’t—no more—please—please,” she whimpered, and wept into the pillow, defenseless. Struan caught his breath. “Now say you’re sorry for going out without permission.”
― James Clavell, Tai-Pan

“Если ты улыбаешься, проигрывая, тогда ты выиграешь в жизни.”
― Джеймс Клавелл, Tai-Pan