“ ...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 fortun… 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
“ Real suspense comes with moral dilemma and the courage to make and act upon choices. False suspense comes from the accidental and meaningless occurrence of one damned thing after another. John Gardner
“ The point is, whether or not they show it at dinner parties, writers learn, by a necessity of their trade, to be the sharpest of observers. John Gardner
“ 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 yourse… John Gardner
“ We slip into a dream, forgetting the room we're sitting in, forgetting it's lunchtime or time to go to work. We recreate, with minor and for the most part unimportant changes, the vivid and continuous… John Gardner
“ So childhood too feels good at first, before one happens to notice the terrible sameness, age after age. John Gardner
“ 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, b… John Gardner
“ God be kind to all good Samaritans and also bad ones. For such is the kingdom of heaven. John Gardner
“ True art is by nature moral. We recognize true art by its careful, thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values. It is not didactic because, instead of teaching by authority and force, it explo… John Gardner
“ When I was a child I truly loved:Unthinking love as calm and deepAs the North Sea. But I have lived,And now I do not sleep. John Gardner
“ The people I've known who wanted to become writers, knowing what it meant, did become writers. John Gardner
“ Talking, talking. Spinning a web of words, pale walls of dreams, between myself and all I see. John Gardner
“ It was said in the old days that every year Thor made a circle around Middle-earth, beating back the enemies of order. Thor got older every year, and the circle occupied by gods and men grew smaller.… John Gardner
“ A dragon is a confusion at the heart of things, a law unto himself. He embraces good, evil, and indifference; in his own nature he makes them indivisible and absolute. He knows who he is. Surely you s… John Gardner
“ The writer's 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 character's… John Gardner
“ Go ahead, scoff, he said, petulant. Except in the life of a hero, the whole world's meaningless. The hero sees values beyond what's possible. That's the nature of a hero. It kills him, of course, ulti… John Gardner
