"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 dre...

Theoretically there's no reason one should get [writer's block], if one understands that writing, after all, is only writing, neither something one ought to feel deeply guilty about nor something one ought to be inordinately proud of.
~ John Gardner (British writer) ~












Theoretically there's no reason one should get [writer's block], if one understands that writing, af...
Show MoreMore John Gardner (British writer) quotes
"Real suspense comes with moral dilemma and the courage to make and act upon choices. False suspense comes from the accidental and meaningless occurren...
"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, ...
"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 ...
"My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it.
"Like other kinds of intelligence, the storyteller's is partlynatural, partly trained. It is composed of several qualities, mostof which, in normal peo...
"Because his art is sucha difficult one, the writer is not likely to advance in the worldas visibly as do his neighbors: while his best friends from hi...
"As every writer knows... there is something mysterious about the writer's ability, on any given day, to write. When the juices are flowing, or the wri...
"The best way in the world for breaking up a writer's block is to write a lot.
"When a writer first begins to write, he or she feels the samefirst thrill of achievement that the young gambler or oboeplayer feels: winning a little,...
"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...
"The very qualities that make one a writer in the first place contribute to the block: hypersensitivity, stubbornness, insatiability, and so on. Given ...
"He must shape simultaneously (in an expanding creative moment) his characters, plot, and setting, each inextricably connected to the others; he must m...
"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 ...
"The people I've known who wanted to become writers, knowing what it meant, did become writers.