Conversations with Michener Quotes

“So I can only conclude that American democracy inherently does not want good leadership. We always passed over the very great men we had like Daniel Webster, John Calhoun, Henry Clay, John Fremont, and the people after the Civil War like Carl Shurz. We pass them up because we don’t want first-class men in that position, we want somebody who is a stupid bum like us. We’re afraid of good leadership until a time of crisis,”
― Lawrence Grobel, Conversations with Michener

“What about golf? It’s something else. It has its own unique niche in society. The gala country club life. It’s a delightful game for elderly executives or even young executives who want to make big deals about selling manufactured products. I can’t take it seriously. Deep-sea”
― Lawrence Grobel, Conversations with Michener

“Reading about Shelley and Byron I get awfully fed up, realizing that these men never did a day’s work in their lives; they lived off the system, were free to travel all around Europe with entourages if necessary, never wrote about a guy earning a living. That is not the world I knew, that is not the world I want to be a part of, and by and large it’s not a world I’m interested in. How”
― Lawrence Grobel, Conversations with Michener