John Irving Quotes - Page 10

Quotes about:

• ...every study of the gods, of everyone's gods, is a revelation of vengeance towards the innocent.

  John Irving

  Study, Vengeance, Innocent

  John Irving (2012). “A Prayer for Owen Meany: A Novel”, p.9, Harper Collins

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• I think that writers are, at best, outsiders to the society they inhabit. They have a kind of detachment, or try to have.

  John Irving

  Thinking, Trying, Outsiders

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• And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.

  John Irving

  Taken, Responsibility, Writing

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• I certainly think Obama is the most hopeful president I've seen in the country since John Kennedy.

  John Irving

  Country, Thinking, Hopeful

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• The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life led by human beings; the second was that human beings could survive a life in hotels.

  John Irving

  Father, Firsts, Bears

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• There's no reason you should write any novel quickly.

  John Irving

  Writing, Reason, Should

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• There's a lot of ignorance about how long it takes to write a novel. There's a lot of ignorance about how long a novel is in your head before you start to write it.

  John Irving

  Writing, Ignorance, Long

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• So, I don't work in terms of real time. I don't work in a timely fashion.

  John Irving

  Fashion, Real, Term

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• I do know where I'm going and it's just a matter of finding the language to get there.

  John Irving

  Matter, Language, Findings

  "Novelist John Irving Plays Not My Job". "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" with Peter Sagal, www.npr.org. June 14, 2012.

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• I'm not a movie person. They're collaborations of the worst kind. You must compromise yourself to many interests that are venal and crass and do not have your best interests at heart.

  John Irving

  Heart, Collaboration, Compromise

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• I had been a student in Vienna, and one of the neat little things I had found out was about that zoo. It was a good debut novel for me to have published. I was 26 or 27 when it was published. I already had a kid and would soon have a second.

  John Irving

  Zoos, Kids, Vienna

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• In the world according to her father, Jenny Garp knew, we must have energy. Her famous grandmother, Jenny Fields, once thought of us as Externals, Vital Organs, Absentees, and Goners. But in the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.

  John Irving

  Father, Grandmother, Energy

  John Irving (1978). “The world according to Garp”, Pocket

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• Don’t you understand?” he would say, “You imagine the story better than I remember it.

  John Irving

  Stories, Remember, Imagine

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• Being wrong about important things is exhausting.

  John Irving

  Important, Exhausting, Important Things

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• It happens to many teenagers-that moment when you feel full of resentment or distrust for those adults you once loved unquestioningly.

  John Irving

  Teenager, Adults, Resentment

  John Irving (2012). “In One Person: A Novel”, p.152, Simon and Schuster

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• Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.

  John Irving

  Practice, Promise, Bears

  John Irving (2012). “A Prayer For Owen Meany”, p.537, Random House

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• When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother's hand, his fingers could see in the dark.

  John Irving

  Mom, Mother, Dark

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• Lilly was not crazy. She left a serious suicide note. 'Sorry,' said the note. 'Just not big enough.

  John Irving

  Suicide, Sorry, Crazy

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• So we dream on. Thus we invent our lives. We give ourselves a sainted mother, we make our father a hero; and someone’s older brother and someone’s older sister – they become our heroes too. We invent what we love and what we fear. There is always a brave lost brother – and a little lost sister, too. We dream on and on: the best hotel, the perfect family, the resort life. And our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them.

  John Irving

  Mother, Dream, Brother

  John Irving (1986). “The Hotel New Hampshire”

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• They all settled into being the kind of friends when they heard from each other.... or when they occasionally got together. And when they were not in touch, they did not think of one another.

  John Irving

  Thinking, Together, Kind

  John Irving (1978). “The world according to Garp”, Pocket

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• In increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us -- not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss.

  John Irving

  Loss, Childhood, Events

  John Irving (2012). “In One Person: A Novel”, p.260, Simon and Schuster

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• Newspapers are even worse for me than ice cream; headlines, and the big issues that generate the headlines, are pure fat.

  John Irving

  Ice Cream, Issues, Newspapers

  John Irving (1989). “A prayer for Owen Meany: a novel”, William Morrow & Co

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• No touching Baby Jesus.” “But we’re his parents!” proclaimed Mary Beth, who was being generous to include poor Joseph under this appellation. “Mary Beth,” Barb Wiggin said, “if you touch the Baby Jesus, I’m putting you in a cow costume.

  John Irving

  Baby, Jesus, Parent

  John Irving (1989). “A prayer for Owen Meany: a novel”, William Morrow & Co

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• It seems to me that people who don’t learn as easily as others suffer from a kind of learning disability—there is something different about the way they comprehend unfamiliar material—but I fail to see how this disability is improved by psychiatric consultation. What seems to be lacking is a technical ability that those of us called ‘good students’ are born with. Someone should concretely study these skills and teach them. What does a shrink have to do with the process?

  John Irving

  Skills, People, Suffering

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• I want to go on being a student," I told him. "I want to be a teacher. I'm just a reader," I said. "DON'T SOUND SO ASHAMED," he said. "READING IS A GIFT." "I learned it from you," I told him. "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE YOU LEARNED IT- IT'S A GIFT. IF YOU CARE ABOUT SOMETHING, YOU HAVE TO PROTECT IT. IF YOU'RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO FIND A WAY OF LIFE YOU LOVE, YOU HAVE TO FIND THE COURAGE TO LIVE IT.

  John Irving

  Teacher, Love You, Reading

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