Quotes by John Gardner

“If they want students to do anything, like reading a newspaper, drinking less alcohol or visiting the library, they need to introduce them to it early.”

“A lot of our clients are older and have been trading up in homes, but as their kids move out theyre reluctant to buy down because of capital gains. This [provision] is getting a lot of interest.”

“As the market has risen, a lot of people are probably over-invested in stocks. You can sell some stocks and buy bonds, mutual funds or CDs that are less risky.”

“If you dont give your kid freedom to make choices with money, including stupid choices, hell make plenty when he gets to college.”

“He has had phenomenal impact on amateur hockey.”

“Its a staggering transition for high school students that found they could study five hours a week and make As and Bs.”

“This is a facility run by skilled people and you wont get that expertise anywhere else.”

“Lenox Township has 1,300 homes right now. We think some time in the next 10 years well build about 4,000 homes. We should see a 400-home increase in just the next few years.”

“The judges did a pretty good job of finding the weak points of both sides arguments. I was a little surprised at how tough the panel was on the government.”

“I didnt believe it at first. The league shouldnt have to have a rule for something like this. It is called ethics and integrity.”

It would be, for me, mere pointless pleasure, an illusion of order for this one frail, foolish, flicker-flash in the long dull fall of eternity.

This highest kind of truth is never something the artist takes as given. Its 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 hes surest of, the artist puts under pressure to see if they will stand.

People will tell you that writing is too difficult, that its impossible to get your work published, that you might as well hang yourself. Meanwhile, theyll keep writing and youll have hanged yourself.

As every writer knows... there is something mysterious about the writers ability, on any given day, to write. When the juices are flowing, or the writer is hot, an invisible wall seems to fall away, and the writer moves easily and surely from one kind of reality to another... Every writer has experienced at least moments of this strange, magical state. Reading student fiction one can spot at once where the power turns on and where it turns off, where the writer writes from inspiration or deep, flowing vision, and where he had to struggle along on mere intellect.

The best way a writer can find to keep himself going is to live off his (or her) spouse. The trouble is that, psychologically at least, it’s hard. Our culture teaches none of its false lessons more carefully than that one should never be dependent. Hence the novice or still unsuccessful writer, who has enough trouble believing in himself, has the added burden of shame. It’s hard to be a good writer and a guilty person; a lack of self-respect creeps into one’s prose.

I know everything, you see, the old voice wheedled. The beginning, the present, the end. Everything. You now, you see the past and the present, like other low creatures: no higher faculties than memory and perception. But dragons, my boy, have a whole different kind of mind. He stretched his mouth in a kind of smile, no trace of pleasure in it. We are from the mountaintop: all time, all space. We see in one instant the passionate vision and the blowout.

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.

Self pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.

They watch on, evil, incredibly stupid, enjoying my destruction.Poor Grendels had an accident, I whisper. So may you all.

The writers characters must stand before us with a wonderful clarity, such continuous clarity that nothing they do strikes us as improbable behavior for just that character, even when the characters action is, as sometimes happens, something that came as a surprise to the writer himself. We must understand, and the writer before us must understand, more than we know about the character; otherwise neither the writer nor the reader after him could feel confident of the characters behavior when the character acts freely.