Alan Garner
Alan Garner
Alan Garner OBEis an English novelist best known for his children's fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. Much of his work is firmly rooted in the landscape, history and folklore of his native county of Cheshire, North West England, being set in the region and making use of the native Cheshire dialect...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionChildren's Author
Date of Birth17 October 1934
brought cannot original prize realm
The thing that I was brought up to prize above everything else is the intellect. There is no problem that the intellect cannot solve, but it never had an original thought. Originality is the realm of the unconscious.
areas frightened though
I don't think I've ever frightened myself before when writing, but there were areas where there was terror, as though I was looking into somewhere that I didn't know existed before, and it frightened me.
experience learnt mystical
My feeling is that writing is, for me, a pathological condition. That could sound like a mystical experience, and it may be a mystical experience, but I have learnt just to go with it.
block thinking waiting
... I had never given much credence to the phenomenon of "writer's block". I was more inclined to think of it as "writer's impatience", and to follow Arthur Koestler's dictum: "Soak; and wait.
jobs stories levels
The job of a storyteller is to speak the truth. But what we feel most deeply can’t be spoken in words alone. At this level, only images connect. And here, story becomes symbol; symbol is myth. And myth is truth.
writing simple world
When you start, the world of publishing seems like a great cathedral citadel of talent, resisting attempts to let you inside. It 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.
stress people care
Hitting the gym to release stress is not nearly as effective as hitting the people that cause the stress to begin with.
coward cop metaphor
I'll buy metaphor, but simile's a cop-out used by scaredycats who won't commit to anything. Simile's for cowards.
monkeys language
When a monkey nibbles on a weenis, it's funny in any language.
family long parent
Possessive parents rarely live long enough to see the fruits of their selfishness.
writing ifs
If you are going to write, nothing will stop you, and if you are not going to write, nothing will make you.
trying force ive-learned
Ive learned never to try and force words to come.
osmosis space long
My background is deep and set in deep time, and in a narrow space, oral traditions going back a long, long time, which I inherited by osmosis.
writing stories research
I love research so much that I do an enormous amount; it helps put off the moment of starting to write the story.