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8757a36
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It is amazing to me, now, how such wild imaginings and philosophies - inspired by a night charged with frights and calamities - made such perfectly good sense to Owen Meany and me, but good friends are nothing to each other if they are not supportive.
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John Irving |
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d28fd44
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LAST NITE I HAD A DREAM. NOW I KNOW FOUR THINGS. I KNOW THAT MY VOICE DOESN'T CHANGE - BUT I STILL DON'T KNOW WHY. I KNOW THAT I AM GOD'S INSTRUMENT. I KNOW WHEN I'M GOING TO DIE - AND NOW A DREAM HAS SHOWN ME HOW I'M GOING TO DIE. I'M GOING TO BE A HERO! I TRUST THAT GOD WILL HELP ME, BECAUSE WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO DO LOOKS VERY HARD.
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John Irving |
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48abc48
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Being wrong about important things is exhausting.
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John Irving |
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427f19c
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IT HAS TO DO WITH ALL OF US," said Owen Meany, when I called him that night. "SHE WAS JUST LIKE OUR WHOLE COUNTRY--NOT QUITE YOUNG ANYMORE, NOT BUT OLD EITHER; A LITTLE BREATHLESS, VERY BEAUTIFUL, MAYBE A LITTLE STUPID, MAYBE A LOT SMARTER THAN SHE SEEMED. AND SHE WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING--I THINK SHE WANTED TO BE GOOD. LOOK AT THE MEN IN HER LIFE--JOE DIMAGGIO, ARTHUR MILLER, MAYBE THE KENNEDYS. LOOK AT HOW GOOD THEY SEEM! LOOK AT HOW DES..
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John Irving |
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e09ad8e
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It's not right to hurt or deceive someone who's already been hurt and deceived.
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John Irving |
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eea1bac
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This is a writer's lesson: To learn that the sounds that we imagine can be the clearest, loudest sounds of all.
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John Irving |
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8843427
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IT HAS TO DO WITH ALL OF US," said Owen Meany, when I called him that night. "SHE WAS JUST LIKE OUR WHOLE COUNTRY--NOT QUITE YOUNG ANYMORE, NOT BUT OLD EITHER; A LITTLE BREATHLESS, VERY BEAUTIFUL, MAYBE A LITTLE STUPID, MAYBE A LOT SMARTER THAN SHE SEEMED. AND SHE WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING--I THINK SHE WANTED TO BE GOOD. LOOK AT THE MEN IN HER LIFE--JOE DIMAGGIO, ARTHUR MILLER, MAYBE THE KENNEDYS. LOOK AT HOW GOOD THEY SEEM! LOOK AT HOW DES..
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John Irving |
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afe767f
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This was not of the nature of a Christlike lesson for Owen Meany to learn, as he lay in the manger, that someone you hate can give you a hard-on.
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sex
epiphany
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John Irving |
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327da8c
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there is no straightforward negotiation with a four year old...
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John Irving |
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5300bb2
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Anyone can be sentimental about the nativity; any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event; if you don't believe in the resurrection, you're not a believer." "If you don't believe in Easter," Owen Meany said. "Don't kid yourself--Don't call yourself a Christian."
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John Irving |
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1808a38
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If pride is a sin ... moral pride is the greatest sin.
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prudishness
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John Irving |
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226571e
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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.
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John Irving |
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a317380
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As it was, things went from bad to worse, as they often will when amateurs are involved in an activity that they perform in bad temper - or in a hurry.
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John Irving |
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d4409e3
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She felt detached from her family, and thought it strange how they had lavished so much attention on her, as a child, and then at some appointed, prearranged time they seemed to stop the flow of affection and being the expectations - as if, for a brief phrase, you were expected to absorb love (and get enough), and then, for a much longer and more serious phase, you were expected to fulfill certain obligations.
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John Irving |
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0771aed
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Here in St. Cloud's," Dr. Larch wrote, " I have been given the choice of playing God or leaving practically everything up to chance. It is my experience that practically everything is left up to chance much of the time; men who believe in good and evil, and who believe that good should win, should watch for those moments when it is possible to play God - we should seize those moments. There won't be may"
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John Irving |
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ee24cd6
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I think about you more and more, but I don't waste my time - or yours - thinking about who you were before I knew you.
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John Irving |
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0f6b1f3
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Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.
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John Irving |
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da1d28e
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Baseball) is a game with a lot of waiting in it; it is a game with increasingly heightened anticipation of increasingly limited action
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sports
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John Irving |
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3e94ea9
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but writers, Garp knew, were just observers - good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.
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John Irving |
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e8dbd47
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there was no more safety to be found in love than there was to be found in a virus.
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John Irving |
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b7a7d15
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And Father said, "There are no happy endings." "Right!" cried Iowa Bob - an odd mixture of exuberance and stoicism in his cracked voice. "Death is horrible, final, and frequently premature," Coach Bob declared. "So what?" my father said. "Right!" cried Iowa Bob. "That's the point: So what?" Thus the family maxim was that an unhappy ending did not undermine a rich and energetic life. This was based on the belief that there were no happy endi..
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John Irving |
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98bc435
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Lilly was not crazy. She left a serious suicide note. 'Sorry,' said the note. 'Just not big enough.
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John Irving |
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e52fc68
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so my grandmother was not without humanity. and if she wore cocktail dresses when she labored in the garden, they were cocktail dresses she no longer intended to wear to cocktail parties. even in her rose garden she did not want to appear underdressed. if the dresses got too dirty from gardening, she threw them out. when my mother suggested to her that she might have them cleaned, my grandmother said, "what? and have those people at the cle..
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John Irving |
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d278797
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Is it a democratic society that condemns people to the accident of conception? What are we-monkeys? If you expect people to be responsible for their children, you have to give them the right to choose whether or not to have children. What are you people thinking of? You're not only crazy! You're ogres!
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John Irving |
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c82fbc7
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Children are most impressed with the importance of a moment when they witness a parent breaking the parents' own rule.
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John Irving |
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21d9e77
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You cannot drive with your eyes in the rear-view mirror... But dignity is difficult to maintain. Stamina requires constant upkeep. Repetition is boring. And you pay for grace.
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John Irving |
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053f773
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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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314b3cf
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Just because you're sober, don't think you're a good driver, Cookie.
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sober
self-importance
driving
drunk
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John Irving |
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5256d61
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Don't you understand?" he would say, "You imagine the story better than I remember it."
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John Irving |
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24ecdef
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But I felt certain that if the world would stop indulging wars and famines and other perils, it would be possible for human beings to embarrass each other to death. Our self-destruction might take a little longer that way, but I believe it would be no less complete.
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John Irving |
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09ce224
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It's natural to want someone you love to do what you want, or what you think would be good for them, but you can't interfere with people you love anymore than you're supposed to interfere with people you don't even know.
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John Irving |
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63ee788
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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."
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John Irving |
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7e310d1
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MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR. AT LEAST, YOU GET TO READ STUFF THAT'S WRITTEN BY PEOPLE WHO CAN WRITE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR, YOU DON'T NEED ANY SPECIAL TALENT, YOU JUST HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT SOMEONE WANTS YOU TO SEE - TO WHAT MAKES SOMEONE ANGRIEST, OR THE MOST EXCITED IN SOME OTHER WAY. IT'S SO EASY!; I THINK THAT'S WHY THERE ARE SO MANY ENGLISH MAJORS!
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inspirational-attitude
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John Irving |
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6fa1479
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Among adults - and among orphans - Wilbur Larch noted that delirious happiness was rare.
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John Irving |
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08124ae
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Garp drank the beer and wondered if everything was an anticlimax..
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John Irving |
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beaf26d
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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 shr..
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John Irving |
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6bd6591
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Whereas she wished more of the population were better educated, she also believed that education was largely wasted on the majority of the people she met.
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John Irving |
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3360ed7
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There are always suicides," Garp wrote, "among people who are unable to say what they mean"."
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John Irving |
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fab869a
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If I had to be anything," he told her, "I'd probably be a socialist, but I don't want to be anything."
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John Irving |
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265dcc3
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I don't want you to describe to me--not ever--what you were doing to that poor boy to make him sound like that; but if you ever do it again, please cover his mouth with your hand.
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John Irving |
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ddae02b
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Gender mattered a whole lot less to Shakespeare than it seems to matter to us.
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shakespeare
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John Irving |
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9167d5e
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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.
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John Irving |
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bc9e255
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I try to see the whole woman,' Eddie said to Hannah. 'Of course I recognize that she's old, but there are photographs - or the equivalent of photographs in one's imagination of anyone's life. A whole life, I mean. I can picture her when she was much younger than I am - because there are always gestures and expressions that are ingrained, ageless. An old woman doesn't see herself as an old woman, and neither do I. I try to see her her whole ..
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John Irving |
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8b26a5f
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He had in abundance youth's most dangerous qualities: optimism and relentlessness. He would risk everything he had to fly the plane that could carry the bomb within him.
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John Irving |