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What art ought to do is tell stories which are moment-by-moment wonderful, which are true to human experience, and which in no way explain human experience.

John Gardner

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John Gardner
Age: 49 †
Born: 1933
Born: July 21
Died: 1982
Died: September 14
Biographer
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Translator
Writer
Kingston
John Champlin Gardner Jr.
True
Explain
Stories
Ought
Human
Wonderful
Humans
Moment
Way
Experience
Tell
Moments
Art

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As a rule of thumb I say, if Socrates, Jesus and Tolstoy wouldn't do it, don't.
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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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Our noblest hopes grow teeth and pursue us like tigers.
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Great things happen nationally when topmost leadership is goaded and supported from below.
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The citizen can bring our political and governmental institutions back to life, make them responsive and accountable, and keep them honest. No one else can.
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Art, of course, is a way of thinking, a way of mining reality.
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The image-managers encourage the individual to fashion himself into a smooth coin, negotiable in any market.
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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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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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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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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 yourself.
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A common and usually unfortunate answer is “Write about what you know.” Nothing can be more limiting to the imagination, nothing is quicker to turn on the psyche's censoring devices and distortion systems, than trying to write truthfully.
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Self pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.
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Find a pile of gold and sit on it.
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When people are serving, life is no longer meaningless.
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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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Talking, talking. Spinning a web of words, pale walls of dreams, between myself and all I see.
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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.
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