“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
“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
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
“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
“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
“all writers, given adequate technique—technique that communicates—can stir our interest in their special subject matter, since at heart all fiction treats, directly… — 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
“...{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
“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
“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
“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
“Not everyone is capable of writing junk fiction: It requires an authentic junk mind.” — 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
“As in the universe every atom has an effect, however miniscule, on every other atom, so that to pinch the fabric of… — 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
Fiction does not spring into the world fully grown, like Athena. It is the process of writing and rewriting that makes a… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Good writers may “tell” about almost anything in fiction except the characters’ feelings.” — 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
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
“A story is like a machine with numerous gears: it should contain no gear that doesn't turn something” — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“The writer sensitive to language finds his own metaphors, not simply because he has been taught to avoid clichés but because he… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Daemonic compulsiveness can kill as easily as it can save. The true novelist must be at once driven and indifferent. Van Gogh… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Real suspense comes with moral dilemma and the courage to make and act upon choices. False suspense comes from the accidental and… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
Art Gropes. It stalks like a hunter lost in the woods, listening to itself and to everything around it, unsure of itself,… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Fiction, like sculpture or painting, begins with a rough sketch. One gets down the characters and their behavior any way one can,… — 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
