When I was a child I truly loved: Unthinking love as calm and deep As the North Sea. But I have lived,… — John Gardner Calm Copy Share Image
“Stars, spattered out through lifeless night from end to end, like jewels scattered in a dead king's grave, tease, torment my wits… — John Gardner Astronomy Copy Share Image
“There is some realm where feelings become birds and dark sky, and spirit is more solid than stone.” — John Gardner Dark sky Copy Share Image
One of the many interesting challenges nature presents us is its apparent disinterest in maintaining the order humans crave. — John Gardner Challenges 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
“We move through a course on Dostoevsky or Poe as we move through a mildly good cocktail party...Art...is less like a cocktail… — John Gardner Art 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
“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
“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 Advice 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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“Daemonic compulsiveness can kill as easily as it can save. The true novelist must be at once driven and indifferent. Van Gogh… — John Gardner Not giving up Copy Share Image
“He could never forgive her for "cheating" on his father. His words, not hers. A child's word. "Selfish bitch," he'd called her… — John Gardner Children Copy Share Image
“Theme is not imposed on the story but evoke from within it--initally an intuitive but finally an intellectual act on the part… — John Gardner Storytelling Copy Share Image
“True artists, whatever smiling faces they may show you, are obsessive, driven people--whether driven by some mania or driven by some high,… — John Gardner Art 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… — John Gardner Bad writing 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
I know everything, you see,' the old voice wheedled. 'The beginning, the present, the end. Everything. You now, you see the past… — 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 First place 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
The image-managers encourage the individual to fashion himself into a smooth coin, negotiable in any market. — John Gardner Business 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
So childhood too feels good at first, before one happens to notice the terrible sameness, age after age. — John Gardner Age 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
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
“Heidegger’s parlamblings on ‘Nothing’ and ‘Not’ and ‘the Nothing that Nothings’ were the last supposedly respectable gasp of classical philosophy.” — 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 citizen can bring our political and governmental institutions back to life, make them responsive and accountable, and keep them honest. No… — John Gardner Citizen Copy Share Image
“In the town, children go down on their backs in the drifted snow and move their arms and, when they rise, leave… — John Gardner Children 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 Copy Share Image
We know that where community exists in confers upon its members identity, a sense of belonging, and a measure of security. .… — John Gardner Belonging 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 Imagination Copy Share Image
“Gilgamesh said to him, to Utnapishtim the remote, "What can I do, Utnapishtim? Where can I go? A thief has stolen my… — John Gardner Gilgamesh 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 Art 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 Character 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 ought to feel deeply guilty about nor something one ought to be inordinately proud of.” quote by John Gardner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8f0/john-gardner-3092_advice_theoretically-there-s-no-reason-one-shou_1625413.png)
