Alaska Quotes

“The city of Los Angeles is now some twenty-four hundred miles south of central Alaska, and since it is moving slowly northward as the San Andreas fault slides irresistibly along, the city is destined eventually to become part of Alaska. If”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“The movement of animals across the bridge was by no means always in one direction, for although it is true that the more spectacular beasts—mastodon, saber-tooth, rhinoceros—came out of Asia to enrich the new world, other animals like the camel originated in America and carried their wonderful capacities into Asia.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“Alaska did not produce supermen, but in its formative periods it was served by men of character and determination, and it is a fortunate land which knows such public servants.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“Like a thousand shamans before him, he was learning that the spiritual adviser of a people had best remain aloof from their political and economic quarrels.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“George T. Myers”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“her fellow passengers: “My”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“but about nine billion years ago a minor portion—staggering in size though only a fraction—began to coalesce into what would ultimately become the galaxy of which we are a part. In this galaxy some two hundred billion stars would form, the one we see rising each morning as our sun being one of the smaller. We must not take too much pride in our galaxy, wonderful as it is, because it is merely one of more than a billion; quite often the others are greater in dimension and larger in their starry populations.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“The Aleutian word for Great Land was Alaxsxaq, and when Europeans reached the Aleutian Islands, their first stopping point in this portion of the arctic, and asked the people what name the lands hereabout had, they replied “Alaxsxaq,” and in the European tongues this became Alaska.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“with a piece of frontier advice long tested in the crucible of practicality:”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“Denali, the glory of Alaska, soars to more than twenty thousand and is one of the most compelling mountains in the Americas.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“I've been afraid even to go out in my snowfall, let alone my blizzard.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“Alaska has had to focus upon the”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“especially the Japanese and Russian”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“originating cauldron by following fissures in rocky formations, depositing”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“If you do go to work straightening things out, take treble precautions to act honorably. I don’t know any other word that applies. I don’t mean honestly, because the law covers that. And I don’t mean sagaciously, because that implies twisting things to your advantage. I suppose I mean honorably, the way a man of honor would behave.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“Can we anticipate such decline? Zelnikov asked, and Voronov replied: “Inescapably. Democracies grow weary. They lose momentum. I can foresee the time will come when they might want to rid themselves of Alaska.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“Islands,”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“Now, what would you call a sea otter. He swims like a fish, that you know. But, he is clearly not a fish, that you also know."
"If he swims, he's a fish."
"But if I pitched you overboard right now, you'd swim too. Would that make you a fish?"
"I can't swim, so I'm still a man.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“The world was tragic, and fine men and strong animals died arbitrarily, but it was also so preposterous that sometimes the crests of mountains seemed to bend together in laughter.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“engine the ability to plow through ice. But the real secret? Look at that prow!” It was treble thick, fortified by oak and ironwood, and capable, said the proud marine architects who devised it, “of breaking its way through any ice it faces.” At that moment, at the beginning of the Bear’s life at sea, it was thought that the ship would serve some routine purpose, but later, when it was dragooned into a rescue operation, it achieved fame on front pages across the world: the American arctic explorer Adolphus Greely had gone bravely into the northern waters of the Atlantic, lost his ship in a crushing ice pack and nineteen of his men in the ensuing attempt to walk back to civilization. All rescue efforts by normal ships having failed, the Bear was purchased by the American government for the huge price of a hundred thousand dollars and hurried to the supposed scene of the disaster. Now an entirely different kind of ship was in the arctic, and its double-stout construction enabled it to break its way through ice fields that no other could have penetrated and, to great acclaim, to rescue Greely and six other survivors. In the aftermath, while the world was applauding this extraordinary ship, someone had the clever idea of transferring it to the revenue cutter service in Alaska, where it would be most useful. Around the Horn it went in November 1885, arriving in San Francisco after only eighty-seven days at sea. By chance, when the Bear docked, Captain Mike Healy was available for a new command, and without much forethought he was given this well-regarded ship which already had a reputation as exalted as his own. It was a remarkable wedding of man and machine, for when he moved his gear into the captain’s quarters and arranged a perch for his parrot and a hiding place for”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“that”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“this manner the legend was born that a Canadian warship had saved Alaska for the United States when no American agency was brave enough to assume responsibility.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“If a mate protested this arrogant waste of animal life, he growled: “The seas are endless. There’ll never be a lack of whales or anything else,”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“Does it really matter? It does matter! Cidaq concluded. It matters enormously. But you mustn’t take it too seriously.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“Rarely does an entire month go by without the clouds lifting for at least a day,” and with that hope I shall go to bed tonight, praying that tomorrow may be that one day in thirty.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“rarely did the soaring words of this Book resound with more meaning than there in the long hut beside the Arctic Ocean as the sailors read the familiar verses they had learned as boys in distant New England.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“Sopilak took his hand and welcomed him to the circle, and picking up the rhythm, Atkins joined the chant, for he too honored the splendid white bear, that creature of the north that had been so majestic in life, so brave in death.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“sailors would not curse Pym for his tardiness in leaving the arctic but praise him for having found “the only spot on this Godforsaken shore where the ice can’t crush us to kindling.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“Lapak Island became one of the more ghastly places on this earth, and the honorable old cossack, Trofim Zhdanko, huddled alone in his hut, steeped in shame and powerless to oppose the evil his stepson had created.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska

“And in this way the Ukrainian cossack Trofim Zhdanko acquired a ship he wanted, a wife he admired and a son he abhorred.”
― James A. Michener, Alaska