John Gardner Quotes

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.

John Gardner

• Reading
• Forget
• Novel
• Printed

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Quotes to Explore

• Reading the several thousand pages of Christopher Isherwood's complete journals is an instructive corrective to the prissiness of reading fiction. Isherwood had faults that we'd say were unforgiveable in a novel (he was careful to distance himself from these in his autobiographical fiction).

  

  Edmund White
  • Reading
  • Distance
  • Say

• The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.

  

  Pablo Neruda
  • Great
  • Book
  • Truth

• We often feel a twinge of guilt over our own fascination with presidential candidates' wives - as if we are secretly reading the 'Star' for our campaign information instead of the policy journals.

  

  Naomi Wolf
  • Reading
  • Star
  • Information

• If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

  

  Edgar Allan Poe
  • You
  • Wish
  • Forget

• We must not forget that chemical warfare will sooner or later bring in its wake bacteriological warfare, pest propagation, typhus and other serious diseases.

  

  Ferdinand Buisson
  • Serious
  • Forget
  • Will

• I wrote my first novel in eighth grade for a boy named Kenny on whom I had an unrequited crush and who sat behind me in social studies.

  

  Kate Christensen
  • Boy
  • Social
  • Novel

• I still think reading something like 'Ulysses' takes a tremendous investment of time, but it repays all of it with so much interest.

  

  D. B. Weiss
  • Time
  • Think
  • Reading

• Historical fiction is actually good preparation for reading SF. Both the historical novelist and the science fiction writer are writing about worlds unlike our own.

  

  Pamela Sargent
  • Good
  • Writing
  • Science

• I certainly gained a lot by reading about Shanghai.

  

  Ralph Fiennes
  • Reading
  • Lot
  • Shanghai

• I don't read horror, ever. When I was 15, I made the mistake of reading part of 'The Exorcist.' It was the first and last horror book I've ever opened.

  

  Dan Brown
  • Book
  • Reading
  • Mistake

• Don't ever forget two things I'm going to tell you. One, don't believe everything that's written about you. Two, don't pick up too many checks.

  

  Babe Ruth
  • Up
  • Believe
  • You

• No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew her, will remember her.

  

  Queen Elizabeth II
  • Remember
  • Never
  • Forget

• When you're first reading the script and thinking about playing the part, it's slightly daunting. It's easy to question, 'Is an audience going to like me? And is that my job?'

  

  Laura Dern
  • Thinking
  • Job
  • Reading

• The spark for 'In Praise of Slowness' came when I began reading to my children. Every parent knows that kids like their bedtime stories read at a gentle, meandering pace. But I used to be too fast to slow down with the Brothers Grimm. I would zoom through the classic fairy tales, skipping lines, paragraphs, whole pages.

  

  Carl Honore
  • Children
  • Kids
  • Reading

• If you write any kind of fiction about America, you immediately have to start doing some research about guns, so in some ways, 'Gun Machine' is just the culmination of 20 years of reading about guns.

  

  Warren Ellis
  • America
  • Reading
  • Gun

• Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

  

  G. M. Trevelyan
  • Education
  • Reading
  • Worth

• Do not forget that the Arab countries, starting with Algeria and Egypt, are the ones that have paid the heaviest toll because of Islamic terror.

  

  Omar Bongo
  • Forget
  • Islamic
  • Starting

• I'll often get obsessed with something for about three days, and I'll be utterly into it, and I'll read every single thing about it possible. And then three days later, I'll just forget about it, and I'll be onto something else.

  

  Ed Gamble
  • Single
  • Forget
  • Three

• And I think it's because good cons are all based on the victim's need, and the successful con artist is the one, I guess, who can exploit that. I remember reading something about this, that one of the great traits of confidence tricksters is the level that they flatter their victim.

  

  Alfred Molina
  • Good
  • Great
  • Remember

• Many books that you read, they have those disclaimers that say that, "None of the events and none of the people are based on real life" and so on... Well, I don't believe that. I think that as human beings many people touch us, especially people we love the most and we can't help but do character sketches when we go to our art.

  

  Sandra Cisneros
  • Believe
  • Real
  • Art

• Our Nation has a diverse and extremely rich cultural heritage. It is a source of pride and strength to millions of Americans who look to the arts for inspiration, communication and the opportunity for creative self-expression.

  

  Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr.
  • Opportunity
  • Inspiration
  • Nation

• But for me to have the opportunity to stand in front of a bunch of executives and present myself, I had to hustle in my own way. I can't tell you how frustrating it was that they didn't get that. No joke - I'd leave meetings crying all the time.

  

  Kanye West
  • Time
  • Opportunity
  • Myself

• 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.

  

  John Gardner
  • Reading
  • Forget
  • Novel