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Authors:

John Gardner quotes

American Novelist July 21, 1933 – September 14, 1982

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Quotes

The true artist plays mad with his soul, labors at the very lip of the volcano, but remembers and clings to his purpose, which is as strong as the dream. He is not someone possessed, like Cassandra, but a passionate, easily tempted explorer who fully intends to get home again, like Odysseus. John Gardner
An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. John Gardner
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. John Gardner
In a world where nearly everything that passes for art is tinny and commercial and often, in addition, hollow and academic, I argue--by reason and by banging the table--for an old-fashioned view of what art is and does and what the fundamental business of critics ought therefore to be. Not that I want joy taken out of the arts; but even frothy entertainment is not harmed by a touch of moral responsibility, at least an evasion of too fashionable simplifications. John Gardner
John Gardner quote: "So childhood too feels good at first, before one happens to..."
So childhood too feels good at first, before one happens to notice the terrible sameness, age after age. John Gardner
they hacked down trees widening rings around their central halls and blistered the land with peasant huts and pigeon fences till the forest looked like an old dog dying of mange. they thinned out the game, killed birds for sport, set accidental fire that would burn for days. their sheep killed hedges, snipped valleys bare, and their pigs nosed up the very roots of what might have grown. hrothgar's tribe made boats to drive farther north and west. there was nothing to stop the advance of... John Gardner
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. John Gardner
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. John Gardner
I should have cracked his skull mid song and sent his blood spraying out wet through the mead hall like a shocking change of key. John Gardner
This highest kind of truth is never something the artist takes as given. It's not his point of departure but his goal. Though the artist has beliefs, like other people, he realizes that a salient characteristic of art is its radical openness to persuasion. Even those beliefs he's surest of, the artist puts under pressure to see if they will stand. John Gardner
If you don't give your kid freedom to make choices with money, including stupid choices, he'll make plenty when he gets to college. John Gardner
I waited for him to find an answer. Minutes passed. It came to me that he had quit. He had glimpsed a glorious ideal, had struggled toward it and seized it and come to understand it, and was disappointed. One could sympathize. John Gardner
...ultimately it come down to, are you making or are you destroying? If you try very hard to create ways of living, create dreams of what is possible, then you win. If you don't, you may make a fortune in ten years, but you're not going to be read in twenty years, and that's that. John Gardner
Self pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality. John Gardner
John Gardner quote: "There is some realm where feelings become birds and dark sky,..."
There is some realm where feelings become birds and dark sky, and spirit is more solid than stone. John Gardner

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