“Two things can keep the common reader going, argument or story. (Both are always involved, however subtly, in good fiction.)” — 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
“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
“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
“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
“A scene will not be vivid if the writer gives too few details to stir and guide the reader's imagination; neither will… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“The shoddy writer wants only publication. He fails to recognize that almost anyone willing to devote between twelve and fourteen hours a… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“I think there really is no other way to write a long, serious novel. You work, shelve it for a while, work,… — 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
“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
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 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
“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 Image
“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 Image
Nothing can be more limiting to the imagination than only writing about what you know — John Gardner Copy Share Image
A nation that values bad philosophy above good plumbing will have neither good philosophy nor good plumbing — John Gardner Copy Share Image
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 Image
