John Gardner Quotes
The primary subject of fiction is and has always been human emotion, values, and beliefs.
Quotes to Explore
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Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.
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Writers of fiction, when they begin, are more likely to try the short form.
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Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.
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Writers write for one reason: to create an emotion in the reader, to reach across and make them feel something. You want a reaction. Yeah, it's nicer when the reaction is to throw flowers than it is to throw brickbats, but you have to accept both equally.
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Film has always been a really good tool for me to communicate emotion about why I create a collection. I'm probably one of the first designers to make short films.
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All tastes have the quality of being in some way artificial and invented. The secret of life is to have enough detachment from your tastes and your values to see that they are a little bit absurd.
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It is my absolute belief that Indians have unlimited talent. I have no doubt about our capabilities.
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Love isn't an emotion or an instinct - it's an art.
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Writers of historical fiction are not under the same obligation as historians to find evidence for the statements they make. For us it is sufficient if what we say can't be disproved or shown to be false.
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When I sit at that typewriter, I have to be frightened of what I'm trying to do. I'm frightened by my own belief that I can actually get a story down on paper.
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I love science fiction.
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As a Westerner, the child of civil rights and anti-war activists, I embraced Islam not in abandonment of my core values, drawn almost entirely from the progressive tradition, but as an affirmation of them.
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There's nobility in hard work, traditional values.
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Fanatics do not have faith - they have belief. With faith you let go. You trust. Whereas with belief you cling.
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All my career, all that I've really done has been based on emotion and intuition and gravitating toward what sounds good.
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Sex is emotion in motion.
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'Can't Get Closer' I originally recorded in about half an hour, just on my bed with a microphone. I actually re-recorded the song with a cleaner vocal take, but I decided to leave the demo version on there, just because I felt that instant where it was created is what captured the most emotion.
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In the aftermath of September 11, it has been made clear to us that our foreign policy can no longer afford to narrowly focus on short-term benefits. For our nation's long-term security, we must be active in promoting American values abroad through our foreign policy.
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To divine the course of world events, you'd do as well to probe the entrails of dead animals. Better still, ask your hairstylist. She will be at least as insightful and probably more entertaining a prophet than anyone you can read in Foreign Affairs or the op-ed page of the Washington Post.
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I saw that I was in danger of becoming ordinary, and I understood that from now on I would have to be vigilant.
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I read a lot of comic books and any kind of thing I could find. One day, a teacher found me. She grabbed my comic book and tore it up. I was really upset, but then she brought in a pile of books from her own library. That was the best thing that ever happened to me.
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What looked like morning was the beginning of endless night
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Good historians, I suspect, whether they think about it or not, have the future in their bones. Besides the question: Why? the historian also asks the question: Whither?
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The primary subject of fiction is and has always been human emotion, values, and beliefs.
