Caravans Quotes

“We are never prepared for what we expect.”
― James A. Michener, Caravans

“Afghanistan, one of the most inconspicuous nations on earth. In 1946 it was just emerging from the bronze age, a land incredibly old, incredibly tied to an ancient past. At the embassy we used to say, “Kabul today shows what Palestine was like at the time of Jesus.”
― James A. Michener, Caravans

“We went into the night and for the first time in my life I saw the stars hanging low over the desert, for the atmosphere above us contained no moisture, no dust, no impediment of any kind. It was probably the cleanest air man knows and it displayed the stars as no other could. Not even at Qala Bist, which stood by the river, had the air been so pure. The stars seemed enormous, but what surprised me most was the fact that they dropped right to the horizon, so that to the east some rose out of dunes while to the west other crept beneath piles of shale.” pg 172 Caravans, Michener, 1963.”
― James A. Michener, Caravans

“I claimed that originally Afghanistan knew the freedom of the caravan, but that willfully the people put themselves in these village prisons under the rule of the mullahs…. Miller claimed that we can never go back to the caravan. That we will know freedom only when the villages have books and roads and electricity.’ ‘Your right about the past… He’s right about the future… Some day all of us will live in villages like this. But they will be better villages.’ And he was gone.” pg 244-245 Caravans, Michener, 1963.”
― James A. Michener, Caravans

“We told Ellen, “He’s a”
― James A. Michener, Caravans: A Novel of Afghanistan

“She has disaffiliated herself from the beliefs that gave our society its structure in the past, but she has found no new structure upon which she can rely for that support which every human life requires.”
― James A. Michener, Caravans

“Christianity had become a convenient ritual for those who overeat on Saturday, commit adultery on Saturday night, and play golf on Sunday.” Ellen’s description, when delivered in French, sounded witty, ugly and profound. “She said she needed a religion much closer to original sources. One thing she said impressed me. She pointed out that Islam, Christianity and Judaism all started in the desert, where God seems closer, and life and death are more mysterious. She said that we are all essentially desert animals and that life is meant to be harsh. When we live in an oasis like Philadelphia or Munich we become degenerate and lose touch with our origins.” “Would you return to”
― James A. Michener, Caravans: A Novel of Afghanistan

“They know that society becomes corrupt and that men must reject it if they are to remain free. They know that life, to replenish itself, must sometimes return to the dregs, to the primitive slime. The men who stood here know that I am right, even if I can’t make you listen.”
― James A. Michener, Caravans: A Novel of Afghanistan