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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #gardner
Maybe, in the final analysis, they saw me as something I wasn't and I tried to turn them into something they could never be. I loved them all but maybe I never understood any of them. I don't think they understood me. ↗
Tucker snorts. "Sage is a fighter, it spreads over the land like wildfire, sucking up all the water, the nutrients in the earth, until everything else dies. It's a heart little plant, that I'll give it. But it's gray and ugly and ticks love to hide in it. You ever seen a tick?" He glances over at me. The look on my face must be pretty appalled because suddenly he gives and uncomfortable cough and says quietly, "Sage does have a nice smell. ↗
When he fell down the stairs, he told people he'd had a stroke. He was just pissed out of his skull. I love Dirk, he is such a drama queen. ↗
After moving his family from Yakima to Paradise, California, in 1958, he enrolled at Chico State College. There, he began an apprenticeship under the soon-to-be-famous John Gardner, the first "real writer" he had ever met. "He offered me the key to his office," Carver recalled in his preface to Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist (1983). "I see that gift now as a turning point." In addition, Gardner gave his student "close, line-by-line criticism" and taught him a set of values that was "not negotiable." Among these values were convictions that Carver held until his death. Like Gardner, whose On Moral Fiction (1978) decried the "nihilism" of postmodern formalism, Carver maintained that great literature is life-connected, life-affirming, and life-changing. "In the best fiction," he wrote "the central character, the hero or heroine, is also the ‘moved’ character, the one to whom something happens in the story that makes a difference. Something happens that changes the way that character looks at himself and hence the world." Through the 1960s and 1970s he steered wide of the metafictional "funhouse" erected by Barth, Barthelme and Company, concentrating instead on what he called "those basics of old-fashioned storytelling: plot, character, and action." Like Gardner and Chekhov, Carver declared himself a humanist. "Art is not self-expression," he insisted, "it’s communication. ↗
God knows I've got so many frailties myself, I ought to be able to understand and forgive them in others. But I don't. ↗
Our phone bills were astronomical, and when I found the letters Frank wrote me the other day, the total could fill a suitcase. Every single day during our relationship, no matter where in the world I was, I'd get a telegram from Frank saying he loved me and missed me. He was a man who was deseperate for companionship and love. Can you wonder that he always had mine! ↗
Don’t be fooled by clever hands, sir” the Sunlight Man said. He’d be lying with the back of his head on his hands, as he always lay. “Entertainment’s all very well, but the world is serious. It’s exceedingly amusing, when you think about it: nothing in life is as startling or shocking or mysterious as a good magician’s trick. That’s what makes stagecraft deadly. Listen closely, friend. You see great marvels performed on the stage - the lady sawed in half, the fat man supported by empty air, the Hindu vanishing with the folding of a cloth - and the subtlest of poisons drifts into your brain: you think the earth dead because the sky is full of spirits, you think the hall drab because the stage is adazzle with dimestore gilt. So King Lear rages, and the audience grows meek, and tomorrow, in the gray of old groceries, the housewife will weep for Cordelia and despair for herself. They weren’t fools, those old sages who called all art the Devil’s work. It eats the soul. ↗
It wasn't you're fault," I whisper. And then out of self-protection more than anything else, I bring the glory. I don't warn him or anything. I don't damp it down. I bring it. The room fills with light. "This is what I am," I say, my hair ablaze around my head. He squints at me. his jaw juts out a little in pure stubbornness. He stands his ground "I know," he says. I take a step towards him, close the space between us, put my glowing hand against his cheek. He starts to tremble. "This is what I am," I say again and my wings are out now. His knees wobble, but he fights it. He puts his hand at my waist, turns me, pulls me closer, which surprises me. "I can accept that," he whispers, and holds his breath, and leans in to kiss me His lips brush mine for an instant, and an emotion like victory tears through him, but he pulls away and glances at the front door. Groans. Christian is standing in the doorway. "Wow," Tucker says, trying to grin. "You really know how to cramp a guy's style." His legs give out. He falls to his knees. My light blinks off. ↗
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 ↗
