Language Quote by John Gardner

““Talking, talking, spinning like a spell, pale skin of words that closes me in like a coffin.””

John Gardner

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Language Pale skin

More by John Gardner

“All to often, on the long road up, young leaders become servants of what is rather than shapers of what might be.”

John Gardner

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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

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“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

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“Except in stock locutions, such as "You were paid yesterday," "The Germans were defeated," or "The project was abandoned," the passive voice is virtually useless in fiction except when used for comic effect, as when the writer mimics some fool's slightly pompous way of speaking or quotes some institutional directive. The active voice is almost invariably more direct and vivid:…

John Gardner

“The instruction here is not for every kind of writer - not for the writer of nurse books or thrillers or porno or the cheaper sort of sci-fi - though it is true that what holds for the most serious kind of fiction will generally hold for junk fiction as well. (Not everyone is capable of writing junk fiction: It…

John Gardner

“Good writers may “tell” about almost anything in fiction except the characters’ feelings. One may tell the reader that the character went to a private school (one need not show a scene at the private school if the scene has no importance for the rest of the narrative), or one may tell the reader that the character hates spaghetti; but…

John Gardner

“the chief offense in bad fiction: we sense that characters are being manipulated, forced to do things they would not really do.”

John Gardner

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“There seems little or no hope for the adult writer who produces sentences like these: "Her cheeks were thick and smooth and held a healthy natural red color. The heavy lines under them, her jowls, extended to the intersection of her lips and gave her a thick-lipped frown most of the time." The phrase "Her cheeks were thick and smooth"…

John Gardner

“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 is worth considering. First person locks us in one character's mind, locks us to one kind of diction throughout, locks out possibilities of going deeply into various characters' minds and so forth. …Vulgar diction in the…

John Gardner

Nothing can be more limiting to the imagination than only writing about what you know

John Gardner

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A nation that values bad philosophy above good plumbing will have neither good philosophy nor good plumbing

John Gardner

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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

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More Language quotes

I put myself in the student's place and remember the frustrations, doubts, determination, and desires I felt when I was going through the initial…

Ted Martinez

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Usually male directors have to use foul language to get the job done. But I never came down to that level as being a…

Divya Khosla Kumar

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A man walks down the street. It's a street in a strange world. Maybe it's the third world. Maybe it's his first time around. He doesn't speak the language. He holds no currency. He is a foreign man. He is surrounded by the sound, sound of cattle in the marketplace, scatterlings and orphanages. He looks around, around he sees angels…

Paul Simon

“I only have two words to say More or Less”

TimBur

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It's like saying French shouldn't be taught because you don't understand it because it's new. Shakespeare is just like learning a new, exciting language.

Samuel Barnett

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I am attracted to looking at the different things language can mean even in one sometimes quite ordinary utterance. Writing is partly about listening closely to yourself as you think or compose and being aware of the different tensions and weights among the words, the different directions any one of them could lead. I like to play with the multiplicity…

Rae Armantrout