Top 100 Gardner's Quotes
#1. We took Beowulf, the epic poem in Old English, and put it right together with John Gardner's contemporary retelling. If you bring it into today, we really feel that it has something very fresh to say now.
Julie Taymor
#2. In non-fiction, I found John Gardner's two writing books to be tremendously helpful.
Ann Leckie
#4. There are many organizations and individuals advocating for the public interest online - what's good for ordinary people - but other interests are more numerous and powerful than they are. I want that to change. And that's what I want to do next.
Sue Gardner
#5. Debunking bad science should be constant obligation of the science community, even if it takes time away from serious research or seems to be a losing battle. One takes comfort from the fact there is no Gresham's laws in science. In the long run, good science drives out bad.
Martin Gardner
#6. It occurs to me,Jim,that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don't you invest more time being interested?
Collin's advice from John Gardner that he took to heart.
James C. Collins
#7. Let us hope that Lysenko's success in Russia will serve for many generations to come as another reminder to the world of how quickly and easily a science can be corrupted when ignorant political leaders deem themselves competent to arbitrate scientific disputes.
Martin Gardner
#8. In one scene, when I was supposed to say, "In a pig's eye you are," what came out was, "In a pig's ass you are." Old habits die awfully hard.
Ava Gardner
#9. I like people thinking I'm an asshole. Being an asshole is my life's vocation; I'm a goddamned asshole professional.
James Alan Gardner
#11. Mothers hold close, fathers let go. Maybe that's the way of the world.
Lisa Gardner
#12. Deal with death every day of my life... in one way or another. You can never tell when it's going to bring you undone.
Scot Gardner
#13. They watch on, evil, incredibly stupid, enjoying my destruction.
'Poor Grendel's had an accident,' I whisper. 'So may you all.
John Gardner
#14. We are all Spirit experiencing a process set up to facilitate its (each Spirit's) understanding of its true identity and, through that understanding, to revert to its pristine state.
Ian Gardner
#15. Teaching which ignores the realities of children will be rejected as surely as any graft which attempts to ignore the body's immune system.
Howard Gardner
#16. Poor Grendel's had an accident. So may you all.
John Gardner
#17. What's the point? My face, shall we say, looks lived in.
Ava Gardner
#18. Carver's best book yet! FROM A CHANGELING STAR combines deft characterization and fascinating extrapolation into a complex, compulsively readable thriller. I wish all science fiction novels could be this good.
Craig Shaw Gardner
#19. She watched you wrestle Toby Jameson, who probably weighs two hundred pounds, without even working up a sweat. And she said to herself, wow, that's a good wrestler, he must be an angel.
Cynthia Hand
#20. Go ahead, scoff, he said, petulant. Except in the life of a hero, the whole world's meaningless. The hero sees values beyond what's possible. That's the nature of a hero. It kills him, of course, ultimately. But it makes the whole struggle of humanity worthwhile.
John Gardner
#22. I did not want vocal groups. I was not interested in singing with a group because there's too much problem with groups in the first place.
Carl Gardner
#23. New media technologies can open up new opportunities for self-expression. But yoking one's identity too closely to certain characteristics of these technologies - and lacking the time, opportunity, or inclination to explore life and lives offline - may result in an impoverished sense of self.
Gardner Howard
#24. I like the old-fashioned, vintage-inspired swimsuits with halters and maybe a little ruching, and the longer cut that's almost short-shorts, like Ava Gardner used to wear a lot, right?
Christina Hendricks
#25. Because it's one thing to survive. It is much, much harder to truly live.
Lisa Gardner
#26. Strong people stand up for themselves. Stronger people stand up for others. The irony is that while sleep sometimes brings nightmares, it's the reality of my waking hours that can cause me the greater fear.
Chris Gardner
#27. A great believer in precedent,' Della Street said. 'I think if he were ever confronted with a really novel situation he'd faint. He runs to his law books, digs around like a mole and finally comes up with case that's what he calls on all fours and was decided seventy-five or a hundred years ago.
Erle Stanley Gardner
#28. In the United States, to an unprecedented degree, the individual's social role has come to be determined not by who he is but by what he can accomplish.
John W. Gardner
#29. Sometimes, all it takes is one arm wrap-round. And a heart's home.
Alyse M. Gardner
#30. It's a law of the universe that 87 percent of all people in all professions are incompetent.
John Gardner
#31. Yeah you do. It's called get your ass registered and don't eat and litter. Rules are simple here," I said.
"I never really did care for rules. And I'm new, I don't know better.
Alyse M. Gardner
#33. 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.
John Gardner
#34. You play with your tongue? You know, I can, too. Just when I do, it's cuter," I paused, "sexier even. Your tongue play? Ugh, just plain creepy. Anyone tell you that your real tongue is not suitable for foreplay?
Alyse M. Gardner
#35. It's not easy to kill a mountain goat. He thinks with his spine.
John Gardner
#36. Becca Gardner is wonderful as the good-hearted little Griff who refuses to be daunted by all the heart-ache and resentment on dad's ranch and this young actress proves there's another young child actress in Hollywood besides Dakota Fanning.
Richard Roeper
#37. People say to me that I'm a role model in technology, but it makes me laugh, because I'm not a technologist, I'm a journalist - that's my background.
Sue Gardner
#38. Years ago I decided that the greatest need in our Country was Art ... We were a very young country and had very few opportunities of seeing beautiful things, works of art ... So, I determined to make it my life's work if I could.
Isabella Stewart Gardner
#39. Women's liberation as a movement makes some valid points. But in the final analysis, it doesn't matter who wears the pants - as long as there's money in the pockets.
Ava Gardner
#41. Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all.
John W. Gardner
#42. Persistence is worth at least as much as talent. The writing life is not a series of gentle encouragements. It's more like a series of brutal kicks in the teeth. Those who grow a thick enough skin to persevere, survive. Those who do not, do not.
Gardner Dozois
#43. There is no limit to desire but desire's needs.
John Gardner
#44. It's human nature, Rainie. We're all looking for something to believe in, and someone to blame.
Lisa Gardner
#45. It's a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check.
Erle Stanley Gardner
#46. Sometimes, falling back on or using an old method or habit, is like sliding into a pair of worn running shoes and a corset. Doesn't make sense to others, but it's not for them. It's what keeps you together, what keeps you going.
Alyse M. Gardner
#47. Special Agent Quincy had earned his stripes as one of the Bureau's finest profilers.
Lisa Gardner
#48. Given time, a ship's crew will attach sexual innuendo to anything. It makes their jobs more exciting.
James Alan Gardner
#49. 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
#50. You know how mountains get moved? Everyone who can move a couple, move a couple. Those who can move rocks, move rocks. Those who can move boulders, move boulders. That's how mountains get moved. If every one of us did everything we could, I believe we would be in a different world.
Chris Gardner
#51. Storybook happiness involves every form of pleasant thumb-twiddling; true happiness involves the full use of one's powers and talents.
John W. Gardner
#52. The more often one finds the magic key, whatever it is, the more easily the soul's groping fingers come to land on it. In magic as in other things, success brings success.
John Gardner
#53. They say golf is like life, but don't believe them. It's more complicated than that.
Gardner Dickinson
#54. That's the first rule of command; be consistent! You can be sadistic, you can be lazy, you can be stupid, but if you're consistent the crew will still let you sit in when they play dominoes.
James Alan Gardner
#55. The best way in the world for breaking up a writer's block is to write a lot.
John Gardner
#56. It's a funny habit to write encyclopedia entries. It's not a mass taste.
Sue Gardner
#57. It's always easy to look back and see where you could've played the hand differently once all the cards are on the table.
Lily Gardner
#58. True happiness involves the full use of one's power and talents.
John W. Gardner
#59. We are schoolmates, I see," he said, smiling at Anne's colors. "That ought to be sufficient introduction. My name is Royal Gardner.
L.M. Montgomery
#60. Although no one believes me, I have always been a country girl and still have a country girl's values
Ava Gardner
#61. Philadelphia's a good science-fiction town. There are many professional writers here, like Michael Swanwick, Tom Purdom, Gregory Frost, Victoria McManus and others. There are professional artists such as Bob Walters and Tess Kissinger and Susan McAninley.
Gardner Dozois
#62. We're not witches. We're the bogeymen and angels that walk the thin seam of the two worlds, like cats on high-wire beams.
Assassins. Peacekeepers. A secret government that's a two-way mirror.
Alyse M. Gardner
#63. Nat: Maybe you broke something.
Midge: I know. Never fall down, never fall down!
Nat: Ah, it's nothing. I fall down every morning. I get up, I have a cup of coffee, I fall down. That's the system. Two years old, you stand up and then BOOM! seventy years later, you fall down again.
Herb Gardner
#64. What I learned is that it's arrogant to be certain of anything. The world is a complex place and only idiots or assholes think they know it all.
Lisa Gardner
#65. We're a dramatic people," Perry Mason said slowly. "We're not like the English. The English want dignity and order. We want the dramatic and the spectacular. It's a national craving. We're geared to a rapid rate of thought. We want to have things move in a spectacular manner.
Erle Stanley Gardner
#66. Increasingly, I'm finding myself uncomfortable about how the Internet's developing, who's influencing its development, and who is not.
Sue Gardner
#67. When I first started editing a 'Year's Best' volume in the '70s, the job was pretty straightforward - there were three or four monthly magazines to read and a few original anthologies from trade publishers every year.
Gardner Dozois
#68. It's been nice knowing you, Clara,
Huh? My brain still a bit shell-shocked.
Say a prayer for me, will you? He gives me a shaky grin.
Because I'm pretty sure my parents are going to kill me
Cynthia Hand
#69. Every day that goes by and we don't win a ballgame, that's a missed opportunity for us to battle back.
Brett Gardner
#70. He stroked Sido's cheek and bent down to kiss her, whispering what his heart had always known, what he had never said before to anyone. 'I love you, I always will.
Sally Gardner
#71. In our stillness, we acknowledge God's greatness and we are at peace in our life. Stillness saturates us in the Presence of God.
E'yen A. Gardner
#72. I know what's in your mind. I know everything. That's what makes me so sick and old and tired.
John Gardner
#73. But perhaps peace was not in a place but within one's self.
Ashley Gardner
#74. I have never stuck up for any criminal. I have merely asked for the orderly administration of an impartial justice ... Due legal process is my own safeguard against being convicted unjustly. To my mind, that's government. That's law and order.
Erle Stanley Gardner
#75. Asked Thomas; it's just him and me and has been for a very long time. We tell each other we are
Lisa Gardner
#77. What are you on?' said AJ. 'Leon's mum has died and you are determined to add to the total sum of misery by going out with the girlfriend of the nastiest piece of manhood that was ever assembled in the factory of life ...
Sally Gardner
#78. It's two lovers that continue to hold each other close but move in life as if they aren't their soul mates because it is deemed necessary.
Alyse M. Gardner
#79. Mrs. Bennington's dramatic expression faded, and she made a face, much like a girl who has been given porridge when she expected thick ham.
Ashley Gardner
#80. 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.
John Gardner
#81. Everybody's saying, be skeptical of Wikipedia. That is true. They should also be skeptical of everything. We should all be critical consumers of the media.
Sue Gardner
#82. An experienced slush-pile reader doesn't need more than a few seconds to see if a story has potential. You don't need to eat all of a rotten egg to determine that it's rotten.
Gardner Dozois
#83. Wikipedia only works in practice. In theory, it's a total disaster.
Sue Gardner
#84. Research by Harvard's Howard Gardner, Stanford's William Damon, and Claremont's Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi zeroed in on what they call "good work," a potent mix of what people are excellent at, what engages them, and their ethics - what they believe matters.18
Daniel Goleman
#85. The self is me, the me is I, and that's all that's left.
Sally Gardner
#86. There's no shame," John Barton said quietly. "Funerals are the place for letting it out. They're the last free-for-all in our society. Without them we would all turn to stone from unexpressed emotion.
Scot Gardner
#87. Hollywood - that's a place where love is viewed both pragmatically and philosophically in the saying, 'Tis better to have loved and divorced than never to have had any publicity at all.
Ava Gardner
#88. Phillip hardened his grip on Totka's. "For all our manipulations, God always manages to get His way."
"A beautiful woman once told me our Jesus Creator is a good and wise chief, worthy of obedience without question. His plan is perfect. Wait, and you will see.
April W. Gardner
#89. A man's character and honor made him stand above others, not his religion or strata in life.
Ashley Gardner
#90. All I need's a fight and a woman. Then I'm set. I get the fight I'll get the money. I get the money I'll get the woman. There's some women that love you for yourself, but that don't last long.
Leonard Gardner
#91. You know what the difference between a cardiac surgeon and God is? God doesn't think he's a cardiac surgeon.
Lisa Gardner
#92. When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns, the U.S. government is virtually up for sale.
John W. Gardner
#93. Bad news. If you can see it coming, you brace yourself; you weigh the outcome. But there's always that niggling voice, that voice of hope whispering, 'Maybe it's good news.' Whether you can admit it or not, that little whisper is a potent thing.
Lily Gardner
#94. The music I wanted to get into when I went to California, was to, uh, get into, uh, pop, mostly. And the big band era was on at that time. I was doing the "Mona Lisa"s, the "Stardust"s, "Stars Fell On Alabama," all this kind of stuff. And that was my thing that I wanted.
Carl Gardner
#95. The only time you're calm, you're centered, you're at peace, is when someone's trying to kill you. And that's just plain twisted.
Lisa Gardner
#96. Everyone's life is a mess. Everyone's. We all make mistakes ... and not just little slip-ups. Major mistakes that hurt us and other people.
James Alan Gardner
#97. The greatest gift that one human being can give another is unconditional love. It's the only thing, ultimately, that really matters.
Joy Gardner
#98. We all understand genetics. You get your eyes from your dad, your mom's nose, there's nothing you can do about that. But your spiritual genetics you can choose, pick, embrace and commit to. That's what I did.
Chris Gardner
#99. I am very aware of the fact that it's highly unlikely anyone will write an article via their mobile phone. I've done it, but it's painful. And it's not just about the small keyboard and the small screen - though that's awful. It's the emotional experience of writing an article.
Sue Gardner
#100. The very qualities that make one a writer in the first place contribute to the block: hypersensitivity, stubbornness, insatiability, and so on. Given the general oddity of writers, no wonder there are no sure cures.
John Gardner
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