Jane Gardam quotes

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

I just knew I would be a writer. It just seemed the only sensible thing to do.

Jane Gardam

I gave myself to my children. It happens to some women.

Jane Gardam

English country life is more like Chekhov than The Archers or Thomas Hardy or even the Updike ethic with which it is sometimes compared.

Jane Gardam

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.

Jane Gardam

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.

Jane Gardam

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.

Jane Gardam

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

Jane Gardam