“Bad art is always basically creepy; that is its first and most obvious identifying sign” — John Gardner Art Copy Share Image
“Only very odd people don’t realize that truth-telling is always a relative value.” — John Gardner 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
“The best way in the world for breaking up a writer's block is to write a lot.” — John Gardner Advice Copy Share Image
“More people fail at becoming successful businessmen than fail at becoming artists.” — John Gardner Becoming successful 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
“My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it.” — John Gardner Advice Copy Share Image
A nation that values bad philosophy above good plumbing will have neither good philosophy nor good plumbing — John Gardner Bad ideas 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 Art Copy Share Image
“That is their happiness: they see all life without observing it. They’re buried in it like crabs in mud. Except men, of… — 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 Athena Copy Share Image
“Two things can keep the common reader going, argument or story. (Both are always involved, however subtly, in good fiction.)” — John Gardner Books Copy Share Image
“He could forget all these people, just like that, become fond again of strangers and leave them too.” — 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 Conformity 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 Morning 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… — John Gardner Dreams Copy Share Image
“As in the universe every atom has an effect, however minuscule, on every other atom, so that to pinch the fabric of… — John Gardner Character 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 Psychology 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 Fiction 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 Time 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 Novelist Copy Share Image
If there is good to be said, the writer should say it. If there is bad to be said, he should say… — John Gardner Life Copy Share Image
“In the final analysis, real suspense comes with moral dilemma and the courage to make and act upon choices. False suspense comes… — John Gardner Courage 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 Short stories Copy Share Image
“It was said in the old days that every year Thor made a circle around Middle-earth, beating back the enemies of order.… — John Gardner Chaos 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 Communication 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… — John Gardner First person Copy Share Image
“No fiction can have real interest if the central character is not an agent struggling for his or her own goals but… — John Gardner Failure 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 Creative writing 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
“The age old idea of human dignity comes to apply even to the indigent, even to the slaves, even to immigrants, now… — John Gardner Art Copy Share Image
“Mickelsson looked at her, surprised to discover that she was stupid.” — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“Good writers may “tell” about almost anything in fiction except the characters’ feelings.” — John Gardner Fiction Copy Share Image
“It was not always like this, of course. On occasion it's been worse.” — John Gardner Copy Share Image
“I was younger then. Still playing cat and mouse with the universe.” — John Gardner Cat and mouse 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
“...{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 Family Copy Share Image
“Where religious values might be relative, intellectual values fleeting, moral values ambiguous, and aesthetic values dependent upon an observer, the existence of… — John Gardner Moral values Copy Share Image
