John Gardner

Self pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality. ↗

— John Gardner

#self-pity #destruction

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. ↗

— John Gardner

#experience #life #love #maturity #experience

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

— John Gardner

#historical-fiction #last-lines #literature #retelling #historical

Art, of course, is a way of thinking, a way of mining reality. ↗

— John Gardner

#art

Talking, talking. Spinning a web of words, pale walls of dreams, between myself and all I see. ↗

— John Gardner

#dreams #i #i see #myself #pale

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

— John Gardner

#introspection #age

The world is all pointless accident... I exist, nothing else. ↗

— John Gardner

#inspirational

Bad art is always basically creepy; that is its first and most obvious identifying sign ↗

— John Gardner

#creepy #criticism #art

All order, I've come to understand, is theoretical, unreal — a harmless, sensible, smiling mask men slide between the two great, dark realities, the self and the world — two snake pits. ↗

— John Gardner

#order #reason #men

Not everyone is capable of writing junk fiction: It requires an authentic junk mind. ↗

— John Gardner

#junk-mind #art