One should fight like the devil the temptation to think well of editors. They are all, without exception - at least some… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
Nothing can be more limiting to the imagination than only writing about what you know — John Gardner Copy Share Image
Writing a novel is like heading out over the open sea in a small boat. It helps, if you have a plan… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“the chief offense in bad fiction: we sense that characters are being manipulated, forced to do things they would not really do.” — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“The people I've known who wanted to become writers, knowing what it meant, did become writers.” — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“The best way in the world for breaking up a writer's block is to write a lot.” — John Gardner Copy Share Image
By the time you've run your mind through it a hundred times, relentlessly worked out every tic of terror, it's lost its… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“The question one asks of the young writer who wants to know if he's got what it takes is this: "Is writing… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“...{N}othing is harder for the developing writer than overcoming his anxiety that he is fooling himself and cheating or embarrassing his family… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“As a general rule, highly rational writers (like Nabokov) write most comfortably in the morning, and mainly intuitive writers write most comfortably… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“He must shape simultaneously (in an expanding creative moment) his characters, plot, and setting, each inextricably connected to the others; he must… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
A common and usually unfortunate answer is “Write about what you know.” Nothing can be more limiting to the imagination, nothing is… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“The very qualities that make one a writer in the first place contribute to the block: hypersensitivity, stubbornness, insatiability, and so on.… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
One must be just a little crazy to write a great novel. One must be capable of allowing the darkest, most ancient… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Nothing is sillier than the creative writing teacher's dictum "Write about what you know." But whether you're writing about people or dragons,… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“What the best fiction does is make powerful affirmations of familiar truths...the trivial fiction which times filters out is that which either… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“One has to be just a little crazy to write a great novel. One must be capable of allowing the darkest, most… — john gardner Copy Share Image
“In writing short stories—as in writing novels—take one thing at a time. (For some writers, this advice I'm giving may apply best… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Though we run across exceptions, philosophical novels where explanation holds interest, the temptation to explain is one that should almost always be… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Good writers may “tell” about almost anything in fiction except the characters’ feelings. One may tell the reader that the character went… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“The writer's characters must stand before us with a wonderful clarity, such continuous clarity that nothing they do strikes us as improbable… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“The instruction here is not for every kind of writer - not for the writer of nurse books or thrillers or porno… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Sentimentality, in all its forms, is the attempt to get some effect without providing due cause. (I take it for granted that… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“What the young writer needs to develop, to achieve his goal of becoming a great artist, is not a set of aesthetic… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Sometimes when one cannot stand the story or novel one is working on, it helps to write something else—a different story or… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Like other kinds of intelligence, the storyteller's is partly natural, partly trained. It is composed of several qualities, most of which, in… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“One of the things that should go into the writer's notebook is a set of experiments with the sentence. A convenient and… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Theoretically there's no reason one should get [writer's block], if one understands that writing, after all, is only writing, neither something one… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Because his art is such a difficult one, the writer is not likely to advance in the world as visibly as do… — john gardner Copy Share Image
“Part of the writer's problem may be thee wrong kind of appreciation: hen he does work he knows to be less than… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“The best way a writer can find to keep himself going is to live off his (or her) spouse. The trouble is… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Writer's block comes from the feeling that one is doing the wrong thing or doing the right thing badly. Fiction written for… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“All to often, on the long road up, young leaders become servants of what is rather than shapers of what might be.” — John Gardner Copy Share
When I was a child I truly loved: Unthinking love as calm and deep As the North Sea. But I have lived, And now… — John Gardner Copy Share
“They only think they think. No total vision, total system, merely schemes with a vague family resemblance, no more identity than bridges and, say,… — John Gardner Copy Share
“Except in stock locutions, such as "You were paid yesterday," "The Germans were defeated," or "The project was abandoned," the passive voice is virtually… — John Gardner Copy Share
“The instruction here is not for every kind of writer - not for the writer of nurse books or thrillers or porno or the… — John Gardner Copy Share
“Good writers may “tell” about almost anything in fiction except the characters’ feelings. One may tell the reader that the character went to a… — John Gardner Copy Share
“the chief offense in bad fiction: we sense that characters are being manipulated, forced to do things they would not really do.” — John Gardner Copy Share
“There seems little or no hope for the adult writer who produces sentences like these: "Her cheeks were thick and smooth and held a… — John Gardner Copy Share
“In any long fiction, Henry James remarked, use of the first-person point of view is barbaric. James may go too far, but his point… — John Gardner Copy Share
Nothing can be more limiting to the imagination than only writing about what you know — John Gardner Copy Share
A nation that values bad philosophy above good plumbing will have neither good philosophy nor good plumbing — John Gardner Copy Share
The citizen can bring our political and governmental institutions back to life, make them responsive and accountable, and keep them honest. No one else… — John Gardner Copy Share
Talking, talking. Spinning a web of words, pale walls of dreams, between myself and all I see. — John Gardner Copy Share
“In writing short stories—as in writing novels—take one thing at a time. (For some writers, this advice I'm giving may apply best to a… — John Gardner Copy Share
All order, I've come to understand, is theoretical, unreal, a harmless, sensible, smiling mask men slide between the two great, dark realities, the self… — John Gardner Copy Share
![“Theoretically there's no reason one should get [writer's block], if one understands that writing, after all, is only writing, neither something one ought to feel deeply guilty about nor something one ought to be inordinately proud of.” quote by John Gardner](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/8f0/john-gardner-3092_advice_theoretically-there-s-no-reason-one-shou_1625413.png)
