John Gardner
John Gardner
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth21 July 1933
CountryUnited States of America
crazy writing littles
One must be just a little crazy to write a great novel. One must be capable of allowing the darkest, most ancient and shrewd parts of one’s being to take over the work from time to time.
art writing waiting
Art Gropes. It stalks like a hunter lost in the woods, listening to itself and to everything around it, unsure of itself, waiting to pounce.
writing sea helping
Writing a novel is like heading out over the open sea in a small boat. It helps, if you have a plan and a course laid out.
spring inspiration writing
Fiction does not spring into the world fully grown, like Athena. It is the process of writing and rewriting that makes a fiction original, if not profound.
writing imagination knows
Nothing can be more limiting to the imagination than only writing about what you know
writing people might
People will tell you that writing is too difficult, that it's impossible to get your work published, that you might as well hang yourself. Meanwhile, they'll keep writing and you'll have hanged yourself.
reading writing printed-word
We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.
sit
We just can't sit back and do nothing.
learning less mature people reasons risk stop willing
One of the reasons mature people stop learning is that they become less and less willing to risk failure.
easily gives momentary pleasure separates victim
Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the nonpharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.
devil exception temptation
One should fight like the devil the temptation to think well of editors. They are all, without exception - at least some of the time, incompetent or crazy.
build few homes increase next time
Lenox Township has 1,300 homes right now. We think some time in the next 10 years we'll build about 4,000 homes. We should see a 400-home increase in just the next few years.
disguised faced great series
We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems.
activity alleged changed conditions fact happening occurred question
The question is not what's happening in 1998, but what if any anticompetitive activity occurred in the past. The fact that competitive conditions have changed would not vitiate any alleged anticompetitive activity in the past.