John Irving quotes - page 2

Maybe television causes cancer, Garp thinks; but his real irritation is a writer's irritation: he knows that wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn't reading. (John Irving)
A reader told me recently, in London, said that 'well, I read that you write the last sentence first, so I always read your last sentence first.' And I said, 'oh, no, you're not supposed to do that.
John Irving
[On his process for writing novels:] I can't imagine what the first sentence is, I can't imagine where I want the reader to enter the story, if I don't know where the reader is going to leave the story. So once I know what the last thing the reader hears is, I can work my way backward, like following a roadmap in reverse.
John Irving
(In reference to Vermont's Act 60): This is Marxism. It's leveling everything by decimating what works ... It's that vindictive 'We've suffered, and now we're going to take money from your kid and watch you squirm'... There's a minority which is an open target in this country which no one protects, and that's rich people.
John Irving
If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.
John Irving
You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else.
John Irving
It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.
John Irving
Keep passing the open windows.
John Irving
What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.
John Irving
People only ask questions when they're ready to hear the answers.
John Irving
We often need to lose sight of our priorities in order to see them. (John Irving)
We are formed by what we desire.
John Irving
If we live long enough, we become caricatures of ourselves.
John Irving
And when you love a book, commit one glorious sentence of it-perhaps your favorite sentence-to memory. That way you won't forget the language of the story that moved you to tears.
John Irving
You don't want to dwell on your enemies, you know. I basically feel so superior to my critics for the simple reason that they haven't done what I do. Most book reviewers haven't written 11 novels. Many of them haven't written one.
John Irving
A truly happy woman drives some men and almost every other woman absolutely crazy.
John Irving
It is your responsibility to find fault with me, it is mine to hear you out. But don't expect me to change.
John Irving
When time passes, it's the people who knew you whom you want to see; they're the ones you can talk to. When enough time passes, what's it matter what they did to you?
John Irving
The desire to never leave your side, the desire to never see you again. The desire to see your face asleep on the pillow beside my face and to see your eyes open in the morning when I lie next to you-just watching you, waiting for you to wake up.
John Irving
You take every opportunity given you in this world, even if you have too many opportunities. One day, the opportunities stop, you know.
John Irving
... and so he tried to accept the ache in his heart as what Dr. Larch would call the common symptoms of normal life. (John Irving)
All men are liars, said Roberta Muldoon, who knew this was true because she had once been a man.
John Irving
Half my life is an act of revision.
John Irving
I'm not afraid, but I'm very nervous.
John Irving
All his life he would hold this moment as exemplary of what love was. It was not wanting anything more, nor was it expecting people to exceed what they had just accomplished; it was simply feeling so complete.
John Irving