Gai-Jin Quotes

“The meeting of the Council after the gai-jin had departed, for once, had been happy and filled with laughter at the enemy’s loss of face,”
― James Clavell, Gai-Jin

“Lust is pressing, something must be done about it.”
― James Clavell, Gai-Jin

“and damned nomads in Mesopotamia have again cut the telegraph—another expeditionary force is being organized to deal with them once and for all!”
― James Clavell, Gai-Jin

“Yesterday, because of Mrs. Struan’s letter to him, he had been confronted with an immortal truth: however loyal you are to a company, however much service you give “the company,” the company can and will spit you out at its whim, without conscience.”
― James Clavell, Gai-Jin

“did. But he was glad her head was deep in his shoulder greatcoat. Again he craned around and caught sight of it, slightly aft and lying flat in the water, now seeming to”
― James Clavell, Gai-Jin

“People are “the company” and those in charge can and always will hide behind that facade, that “the company must survive,” or “for the good of the company,” and so on, wrecking or promoting for personal reasons, enmities or hatreds.”
― James Clavell, Gai-Jin

“Ladies born in Year of Horse, with the fire sign, are thought to be . . . unlucky.”
― James Clavell, Gai-Jin

“Like every serious student, follow the most important law for all students: repay your teacher by making it your duty to surpass him!”
― James Clavell, Gai-Jin

“Put not your trust in bloody princes, they can plead expedience.”
― James Clavell, Gai-Jin

“you would think they would be happy fornicators like normal persons. But they are not, they have so many cobwebs in their heads that somehow fornication is not our Most Heavenly Pleasure, but some kind of secret, religious evil. Weird.”
― James Clavell, Gai-Jin

“Ah time! ‘Time is a thought,’ he had told his students in their Zen classes, opening and closing his fist for emphasis. ‘Time exists but does not exist, is permanent and impermanent, fixed and elastic, necessary and unnecessary, to be held in the hand and wondered at: why?”
― James Clavell, Gai-Jin

“Machiavelli wrote, ‘It is necessary for the State to deal in lies and half-truths, because people are made up of lies and half-truths. Even princes.’ And certainly, by definition, all Ambassadors and politicians.”
― James Clavell, Gai-Jin

“cavalry. Everyone had whirled or ducked and in the silence Sir”
― James Clavell, Gai-Jin