51 Quotes by Alan Garner

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.

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.

My primary tongue, I would call North-West Mercian.

My mother read nursery rhymes to me, and my grandmother told me folk stories, but as a child I had no interest in writing whatsoever.

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.

As far as the world was concerned, from 1979 to 1996, I didn't publish any original material; it just wasn't there.

I loathe crowds. I especially don't like cities. A city involves biomass. And biomass gets to me.

It’s where I keep all my things. Get a lot of compliments on this. Plus it’s not a purse, it’s called a satchel. Indiana Jones wears one.

When a monkey nibbles on a weenis, it’s funny in any language.