“What true materialist would settle for a MacDonald's hamburger?” — John Gardner Hamburger Copy Share Image
“My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it.” — John Gardner Advice Copy Share Image
“The people I've known who wanted to become writers, knowing what it meant, did become writers.” — John Gardner Learning Copy Share Image
“More people fail at becoming successful businessmen than fail at becoming artists.” — John Gardner Becoming successful Copy Share Image
“The best way in the world for breaking up a writer's block is to write a lot.” — John Gardner Advice Copy Share Image
“one sign of a writer’s potential is his especially sharp ear—and eye—for language.” — John Gardner Language Copy Share Image
“Only very odd people don’t realize that truth-telling is always a relative value.” — John Gardner Telling Copy Share Image
“Bad art is always basically creepy; that is its first and most obvious identifying sign” — John Gardner Art 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 Courage Copy Share Image
So childhood too feels good at first, before one happens to notice the terrible sameness, age after age. — John Gardner Age Copy Share Image
“A story is like a machine with numerous gears: it should contain no gear that doesn't turn something” — John Gardner Computers Copy Share Image
The image-managers encourage the individual to fashion himself into a smooth coin, negotiable in any market. — John Gardner Business 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 Ancient Copy Share Image
“He was saner than anyone --had fallen out of the world of illusion: love, interesting work, hope for the future.” — John Gardner Hope for the future Copy Share Image
“Most creative-writing teachers have had the experience of occasionally helping to produce, by accident, a pornographer.” — John Gardner Creative writing Copy Share Image
The hero sees values beyond what's possible. That's the nature of a hero. It kills him, of course, ultimately. But it makes… — John Gardner Hero Copy Share Image
“One cannot judge in advance whether or not the idea of the story is worthwhile because until one has finished writing the… — John Gardner First-draft Copy Share Image
“Shamash grant your wish. What your mouth has said, may your eyes see. May he open for you the barred path, unclose… — John Gardner Wish 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 Writer Copy Share Image
“How, if I know all this, you may ask, could I hound him – shatter him again and again, drive him deeper… — John Gardner Kindness 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 First place 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 Fear Copy Share Image
“We human beings glimpse lofty ideals, catch ourselves betraying them, and sink to suicidal despair--despair from which only the love of our… — John Gardner Friendship Copy Share Image
The true artist plays mad with his soul, labors at the very lip of the volcano, but remembers and clings to his… — John Gardner Art 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 Art 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 Books Copy Share Image
“When a writer first begins to write, he or she feels the same first thrill of achievement that the young gambler or… — John Gardner Adventure 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 Dependence Copy Share Image
“Don’t be fooled by clever hands, sir” the Sunlight Man said. He’d be lying with the back of his head on his… — John Gardner Fat man 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 First place Copy Share Image
I know everything, you see,' the old voice wheedled. 'The beginning, the present, the end. Everything. You now, you see the past… — John Gardner All time Copy Share Image
“O the ultimate evil in the temporal world is deeper than any specific evil, such as hatred, or suffering, or death! The… — John Gardner Death Copy Share Image
Talking, talking. Spinning a web of words, pale walls of dreams, between myself and all I see. — John Gardner Dreams Copy Share Image
“I was younger then. Still playing cat and mouse with the universe.” — John Gardner Cat and mouse Copy Share Image
“It was not always like this, of course. On occasion it's been worse.” — John Gardner Like Copy Share Image
“Good writers may “tell” about almost anything in fiction except the characters’ feelings.” — John Gardner Fiction Copy Share Image
