Jane Gardam Quotes

Jane Gardam — English Writer born on July 11, 1928,

Jane Mary Gardam OBE FRSL is an English writer of children's and adult fiction. She also writes reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and writes for BBC radio. She lives in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. She has won numerous literary awards, including the Whitbread Award twice. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2009 New Year Honours... (wikipedia)

Stories of all lengths and depths come from different parts of the cave. For a novel, you must lay in mental, physical and spiritual provision as for a siege or for a time of hectic explosions, while a short story is, or can be, a steady, timed flame like the lighting of a blow lamp on a building site full of dry tinder.

For years, there was no man in the house when my husband was off on law cases in the Far East. Without writing, I would have been bored and unfaithful, maybe both, and the children would have been hideously over-protected.

I think the most dangerous influence for a young writer is to be treated with cynicism or discouragement.

I was nearly 40 when I started. I had no fear that I wasn't going to write. I knew it was just delayed. Then, my goodness, I never stopped.

I can't write the same book over and over again... let it go, once it's gone!