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9bd26cb
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In schools--even in good schools, like Exeter--they tend to teach the shorter books by the great authors; at least they begin with those. Thus it was Billy Budd, Sailor that introduced me to Melville, which led me to the library, where I discovered Moby Dick on my own.
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John Irving |
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07aa770
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I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice--not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. I make no claims to have a life in Christ, or with Christ--and certainly not for Christ, which I've heard some zealots claim. I'm not very sophisticated in my knowledge..
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John Irving |
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2f482c7
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to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal,'" Pastor Merrill said. "'So we are always of good courage'!" my father exhorted us. "'We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight,'" he said. "'We are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at hom..
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John Irving |
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ba2b29b
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As often as I feel certain that God exists, I feel as often at a loss to say what difference it makes--that He exists--or even: that to believe in God, which I do, raises more questions than it presents answers. Thus, when I am feeling my most faithful, I also feel full of a few hard questions that I would like to put to God--I mean, critical questions of the How-Can-He, How-Could-He, How-Dare-You variety. "For example, I would like to ask ..
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John Irving |
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c96bc5d
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Garp didn't want a daughter because of men. Because of bad men, certainly; but even, he thought, because of men like me.
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John Irving |
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8db97eb
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Things often are as they appear. First impressions matter.
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John Irving |
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12ba460
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As often as I feel certain that God exists, I feel as often at a loss to say what difference it makes--that He exists--or even: that to believe in God, which I do, raises more questions than it presents answers. Thus, when I am feeling my most faithful, I also feel full of a few hard questions that I would like to put to God--I mean, critical questions of the How-Can-He, How-Could-He, How-Dare-You variety.
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John Irving |
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45322ea
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I read the passage Owen had underlined most fervently in his copy of St. Thomas Aquinas--" Demonstration of God's Existence from Motion." I read the passage over and over, sitting on Owen Meany's bed. Since everything that is moved functions as a sort of instrument of the first mover, if there was no first mover, then whatever things are in motion would be simply instruments. Of course, if an infinite series of movers and things moved were ..
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John Irving |
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9239c43
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It was Owen Meany who taught me that any good book is always in motion--from the general to the specific, from the particular to the whole, and back again. Good reading--and good writing about reading--moves the same way.
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John Irving |
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64fa587
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We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly - as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth - the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives.
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John Irving |
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56a4311
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It had been an evening in the empty dance hall when not even that depth of stone and the constant stirring of the ceiling fans could cool the stifling and humid night air, which had entered the Duckworth Club as heavily as a fog from the Arabian Sea. Even atheists, like Lowji, were praying for the monsoon rains. After
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John Irving |
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07f08ee
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LIBERACE!' Owen would have cried. 'WHO WOULD HAVE BELIEVED IT POSSIBLE? LIBERACE! KILLED BY WATERMELONS!
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John Irving |
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e3489b7
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the public entertainment of any period distinguishing the period as clearly as its so-called politics,
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John Irving |
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6a5565c
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The world has many unintentionally cruel mechanisms that are not designed for people who walk on their hands.
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John Irving |
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4903aae
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Pour Juan Diego, des morts ou des fantomes auraient du avoir une toute autre attitude, surtout dans une eglise. Que venaient-ils chercher ? Ne connaissaient-ils pas les reponses desormais ?
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John Irving |
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526a94f
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There is no Purgatory-that's a catholic invention. There's life on earth, There's heaven-and there's hell
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John Irving |
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a590118
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a school-vacation skier is never the equal to a north-country native.
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John Irving |
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49c1460
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There are moments when time does stop. We must be alert enough to notice such moments.
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John Irving |
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28d712b
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El papa Benedicto XVI habia dicho que la pederastia se consideraba normal hasta fecha tan reciente como los anos setenta. [...] - Benedicto dijo: "Nada es bueno o malo en si mismo". Dijo "nada", Clark -repitio Juan Diego a su exalumno-. La pederastia no es "nada"; seguramente la pederastia si es "mala en si misma", Clark."
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religion
pederastia
pederasty
pope-benedict-xvi
papa
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John Irving |
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b5425ae
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Aren't eccentricities fairly common among overachievers.
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John Irving |
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13111d2
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What a phrase that is: "that explains everything!" I know better than to think that anything "explains everything" today."
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John Irving |
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6a4148b
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book is always in motion - from the general to the specific, from the particular to the whole, and back again. Good reading
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John Irving |
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79daf17
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HOW CAN YOU BE HAPPY IF YOU SPEND ALL YOUR TIME THINKING ABOUT DOING IT?" Owen asked."
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John Irving |
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6aa3ce1
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I won't pretend that it wasn't gratifying to hear this, but I would rather have heard it privately; it wasn't something I wanted to share with Tom Atkins.
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John Irving |
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f517151
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But Americans are not great historians, and so, for years--educated by my neighbor--I thought that sagamore was an Indian word for lake.
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John Irving |
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85d72a8
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every study of the gods, of everyone's gods, is a revelation of vengeance toward the innocent.
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John Irving |
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c5db88d
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with his own very male instincts, which were otherwise
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John Irving |
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f508d44
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After all: I had been practicing lifting up Owen Meany--forever. The
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John Irving |
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380ad55
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Then he looked only at me. "YOU'RE GETTING SMALLER, BUT I CAN STILL SEE YOU!" said Owen Meany. Then"
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John Irving |
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bec1647
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When we held Owen Meany above our heads, when we passed him back and forth--so effortlessly--we believed that Owen weighed nothing at all. We did not realize that there were forces beyond our play. Now I know they were the forces that contributed to our illusion of Owen's weightlessness; they were the forces we didn't have the faith to feel, they were the forces we failed to believe in--and they were also lifting up Owen Meany, taking him o..
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John Irving |
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351a223
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At Circus of The Wonder, only young women--just the girl acrobats, of a certain age--were trained to be skywalkers (The Wonders themselves). This was also on purpose, and entirely Ignacio's doing. The lion tamer liked young women; he thought that prepubescent girls were the best skywalkers. Ignacio believed that if you were in the audience, you wanted to be worried about the girls falling, not thinking about them sexually; once women were o..
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John Irving |
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890f5b7
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As for Dr. Zajac's modest contribution to the ongoing pollution of the Charles River... well, let's be fair... In his hopelessly old-fashioned opinion, a lot worse than dogshit was dumped into the Charles on daily basis.
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John Irving |
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341d768
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IF WE FIRST APPEAR IN THE PLEISTOCENE, I THINK THIS IS WHEN WE DISAPPEAR - I GUESS A MILLION YEARS OF MAN IS ENOUGH
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John Irving |
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c69e050
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Canon Campbell told me that most smart-ass Canadians tend to move to the United States. I
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John Irving |
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71cb7a2
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Cosa vorresti sapere su te stesso, di preciso?>> mi chiese ad un certo punto. <> gli risposi. <> disse Richard in tono incoraggiante. <> <> provai a spiegargli. <
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bisessualità
cotte
amore
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John Irving |
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00e5a7d
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Ho letto tutti i tuoi libri>> rispose con entusiasmo. <> aggiunse, scandendo con cura le parole latine. <> Ci sorridemmo: aveva detto tutto quello che c'era da dire, e l'aveva detto proprio bene. Suo padre sarebbe stato felice dell'uomo che era diventato, nella misura in cui riusciva a concepire la felicita. Io e Tom eravamo cresciuti con il dispre..
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figli
genitori
omosessualità
orgoglio
scrittura
futuro
libri
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John Irving |
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4b37e4a
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E un buon segno piangere per un romanzo>> mi assicuro Miss Frost. <> <>
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romanzo
sensibilità
cuore
piangere
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John Irving |
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3cd1f54
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In a living city, I could never have noticed so much. Living cities don't hold still.
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John Irving |
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e795858
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She felt if she ever had children she would love them no less when they were twenty than when they were two; they might need you more at twenty, she thought. What do you really need when you're two? In the hospital, the babies were the easiest patients. The older they got, the more they needed; and the less anyone wanted or loved them.
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love
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John Irving |
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6a56a5e
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We'll be back, with more ashes for you!" el jefe had shouted. "You"
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John Irving |
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cd56bdb
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And feeling like a failed sexual predator, because of pregnant Mary...
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John Irving |
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92c90f2
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Americans are suckers for an English accent.
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John Irving |
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ab7a74e
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When they weren't praying, they did what schoolgirls everywhere do. They laughed, they shrieked, they burst into hysterical sobs - all for no apparent reason... The schoolgirls also played the worst Western music imaginable, and they took a surfeit of baths - so many baths that the traditional inn where Wallingford and Evelyn Arbuthnot stayed was repeatedly running out of hot water.
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John Irving |
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c630360
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There is often a defining experience that marks any significant change in the course of a person's life.
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John Irving |