John Gardner

Author, Educator

John Gardner was an influential American novelist and essayist known for his exploration of creativity and the human experience, particularly in works like 'Grendel'.

Born
July 21, 1912
Died
August 31, 2002
Quotes
37
Rank
#2431

Quote collection

John Gardner quotes (page 2 of 2)

37 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

John Gardner Author, Educator
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"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."

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John Gardner Author, Educator
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"To write with taste, in the highest sense, is to write [...] so that no one commits suicide, no one despairs; to write [...] so that people understand, sympathize, see the universality of pain, and feel strengthened, if not directly encouraged to live on. If there is good to be said, the writer should say it. If there is bad to be said, he should say it in a way that reflects the truth that, though we see the evil, we choose to continue among the living. The true artist [...] gets his sense of worth and honor from his conviction that art is powerful--"

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John Gardner Author, Educator
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"In university courses we do exercises. Term papers, quizzes, final examinations are not meant for publication. We move through a course on Dostoevsky or Poe as we move through a mildly good cocktail party, picking up the good bits of food or conversation, bearing with the rest, going home when it comes to seem the reasonable thing to do. Art, at those moments when it feels most like art -- when we feel most alive, most alert, most triumphant -- is less like a cocktail party than a tank full of sharks."

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John Gardner Author, Educator
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"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."

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John Gardner Author, Educator
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"When I was a child I truly loved: Unthinking love as calm and deep As the North Sea. But I have lived, And now I do not sleep."

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

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"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."

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"Find a pile of gold and sit on it."

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John Gardner Author, Educator
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"I cannot believe such monstrous energy of grief can lead to nothing!"

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John Gardner Author, Educator
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"Poor Grendel's had an accident. So may you all."

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John Gardner Author, Educator
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"Our noblest hopes grow teeth and pursue us like tigers."

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"So childhood too feels good at first, before one happens to notice the terrible sameness, age after age."

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"...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."

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"We know that where community exists in confers upon its members identity, a sense of belonging, and a measure of security. . . . Communities are the ground-level generators and preservers of values and ethical systems."

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"I couldn't go on, too conscious all at once of my whispering, my eternal posturing, always transforming the world with words--changing nothing."

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