My great-grandfather was a self-taught man, and his library was extraordinary. I read the lot.
ALAN GARNERMy great-grandfather was a self-taught man, and his library was extraordinary. I read the lot.
ALAN GARNEREverything I have ever written has been in the same chair, in the same room.
ALAN GARNERIf you are going to write, nothing will stop you, and if you are not going to write, nothing will make you.
ALAN GARNEROral traditions going back a long, long time, which I inherited by osmosis.
ALAN GARNERAt this level, only images connect. And here, story becomes symbol; symbol is myth. And myth is truth.
ALAN GARNERI was more inclined to think of it as “writer’s impatience”, and to follow Arthur Koestler’s dictum: “Soak; and wait.
ALAN GARNERWhen a monkey nibbles on a weenis, it’s funny in any language.
ALAN GARNERThe job of a storyteller is to speak the truth. But what we feel most deeply can’t be spoken in words alone.
ALAN GARNERShe wants to be flowers, but you make her owls.
ALAN GARNERPossessive parents rarely live long enough to see the fruits of their selfishness.
ALAN GARNERI learnt that I must never finish a book with nothing else to do.
ALAN GARNERIt’s where I keep all my things. Get a lot of compliments on this.
ALAN GARNERA city involves biomass. And biomass gets to me.
ALAN GARNERIm not supposed to be within two hundred feet of a school or a Chuck E. Cheese.
ALAN GARNER… I had never given much credence to the phenomenon of “writer’s block”.
ALAN GARNERIt isn’t like that at all. It may be more difficult now, and take longer than when I started to write, but there’s a great, empty warehouse out there looking for simple talent.
ALAN GARNER