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eb32e7f
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Grant us safe lodging, and holy rest," Mrs. Grogan was saying, "and peace at last." Amen, thought Wilbur Larch, the Saint of St. Cloud's, who was seventy-something, and an ether addict, and who felt that he'd come a long way and still had a long way to go."
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John Irving |
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d518f74
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I think that was when the headmaster realized he had lost; he realized then that he was finished. Because, what could he do? Was he going to tell us to stop praying? We kept our heads bowed; and we kept praying. Even as awkward as he was, the Rev. Mr. Merrill had made it clear to us that there was no end to praying for Owen Meany.
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John Irving |
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2eea5a6
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My dear boy, " Miss Frost said sharply. "My dear boy, please don't put a label on me - don't make a category before you get to know me!"
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John Irving |
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b6d1985
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My brain is sending poison to my heart.
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John Irving |
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2fcdf46
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There was no manifestation of contemporary culture that did not indicate to my grandmother how steadfast was the nation's decline, how merciless our mental and moral deterioration, how swiftly all-embracing our final decadence. I never saw her read a book again; but she referred to books often - as if they were shrines and cathedrals of learning that television had plundered and then abandoned.
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John Irving |
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c25941a
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You're nice,' Cushie told him, squeezing his hand. 'And you're my oldest friend.' But they both must have known that you can know someone all your life and never quite be friends.
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John Irving |
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198049c
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It's because even a good man can't always be right, that we need ... rules.
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morality
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John Irving |
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1c1ca0e
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Don't get your balls crossed about it.
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fretting
relax
worrying
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John Irving |
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b38c2a1
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THERE'S NO MONKEY BUSINESS ABOUT THIS ELECTION,' he told the voters. 'IF YOU'RE ENOUGH OF AN ASSHOLE TO VOTE FOR NIXON, YOUR DUMB VOTE WILL BE COUNTED--JUST LIKE ANYBODY ELSE!
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John Irving |
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48f4726
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Sigmund Freud was a novelist with a scientific background. He just didn't know he was a novelist. All those damn psychiatrists after him, they didn't know he was a novelist either.
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science
psychiatrists
sigmund-freud
novelists
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John Irving |
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26cb3f4
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The gardener had a dread of small women; he'd always imagined them to have an anger disproportionate to their size.
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John Irving |
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9b20e84
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Life," Garp wrote, "is sadly not structured like a good old-fashioned novel. Instead an end occurs when those who are meant to peter out have petered out. All that is left is memory. But even a nihilist has memory."
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memory
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John Irving |
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4ee6e14
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Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.
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writing
victims
craft
novels
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John Irving |
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4329d38
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A novelist is a doctor who sees only terminal cases.
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John Irving |
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6ffbe39
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MADE FOR TELEVISION.
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John Irving |
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a394dee
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There's nothing as scary as the future.
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John Irving |
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c246605
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In a school community, someone who reads a book for some secretive purpose, other than discussing it, is strange. What was she reading for?
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reading
school
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John Irving |
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1c98430
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We don't enjoy giving directions in New Hampshire-we tend to think if you don't know where you're going, you don't belong where you are.
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John Irving |
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5eb309b
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JUST BECAUSE A BUNCH OF ATHEISTS ARE BETTER WRITERS THAN THE GUYS WHO WROTE THE BIBLE DOESN'T NECESSARILY MAKE THEM RIGHT!" [Owen Meany] said crossly. "LOOK AT THOSE WEIRDO TV MIRACLE-WORKERS--THEY'RE TRYING TO GET PEOPLE TO BELIEVE IN MAGIC! BUT THE REAL MIRACLES AREN'T ANYTHING YOU CAN SEE--THEY'RE THINGS YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE WITHOUT SEEING. IF SOME PREACHER'S AN ASSHOLE, THAT'S NOT PROOF THAT GOD DOESN'T EXIST!"
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faith
god
miracles
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John Irving |
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996fa66
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He was one of those people things came easily to, but he did little to demonstrate that he deserved to be gifted.
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John Irving |
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5825360
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But who can distinguish between falling in love and imagining falling in love? Even genuinely falling in love is an act of the imagination.
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John Irving |
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828fb25
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Sell my old clothes - I'm off to heaven
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John Irving |
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3269bd1
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In our hearts... there must abide some pity for those people who have always felt themselves to be separate from even their most familiar surroundings, those people who either are foreigners or who suffer a singular point of view that makes them feel as if they're foreigners - even in their native lands. In our hearts... there also abides a certain suspicion that such people need to feel set apart from their society. But people who initiate..
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lonliness
social-anxiety
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John Irving |
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c1999fe
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Almost none of them understood Great Expectations or David Copperfield, anyway. They were not only too young for the Dickensian language, they were also too young to comprehend the usual language of St. Cloud's. What mattered to Dr. Larch was the idea of reading aloud - it was a successful soporific for the children who didn't know what they were listening to, and for those few who understood the words and the story, then the evening readin..
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John Irving |
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1b0a6e2
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All I say is: Let us leave les folles alone; let's just leave them be. Don't judge them. You are not superior to them - don't put them down.
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homesexual
les-folles
tolerance
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John Irving |
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f59db8f
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Most places we leave in childhood grow less, not more, fancy.
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psychology
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John Irving |
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845ee38
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Thus we try to keep our heroes alive; hence we remember them.
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John Irving |
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07a34b7
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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.
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John Irving |
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30f1649
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No one but me ever put a hand on me to feel that baby. No one wanted to put his ear against it and listen...You shouldn't have a baby if there's no one who wants to feel it kick or listen to it move.
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women
choice
abortionists
adoption
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John Irving |
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b429ad3
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but I suddenly realized what small towns are. They are places where you grow up with the peculiar -- you live next to the strange and the unlikely for so long that everything and everyone become commonplace. My cousins were both small-towners and outsiders; they had not grown up with Own Meany, who was so strange to them that he inspired awe - yet they were no more likely to fall upon him, or to devise ways to torture him, than it was likel..
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John Irving |
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a1bad82
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Newspapers are a bad habit, the reading equivalent of junk food. What happens to me is that I seize upon an issue in the news--the issue is the moral/philosophical, political/intellectual equivalent of a cheeseburger with everything on it; but for the duration of my interest in it, all my other interests are consumed by it, and whatever appetites and capacities I may have had for detachment and reflection are suddenly subordinate to this ch..
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politics
junk-food
newspapers
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John Irving |
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25fdc34
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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.
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John Irving |
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7bdc8ae
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Bonkie bit Garp!" Garp bit Bonkie"
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John Irving |
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a94c8c1
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The powerful wind swept his hair away from his face; he leaned his chest into the wind, as if he stood on the deck of a ship heading into the wind, slicing through the waves of an ocean he'd not yet seen.
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John Irving |
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0ed095a
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YOU LET ME DROWN!" Owen said. "YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! YOU JUST WATCHED ME DROWN! I'M ALREADY DEAD!" he told us. "REMEMBER THAT: YOU LET ME DIE."
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John Irving |
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cb78a8f
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A person's faith goes at its own pace. The trouble with church is the service. A service is conducted for a mass audience. Just when I start to like the hymn, everyone plops down to pray. Just when I start to hear the prayer, everyone pops up to sing. And what does the stupid sermon have to do with God? Who knows what God thinks of current events? Who cares?
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religion
mass
service
church
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John Irving |
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4b755c5
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You can learn a lot from your lovers, but-for the most part-you get to keep your friends longer, and you learn more from them.
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learning
life
love
lesson
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John Irving |
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221a9dc
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When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don''t lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time.
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John Irving |
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37a2a96
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He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson
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John Irving |
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e6b1851
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Novels are just another kind of cross-dressing, aren't they?
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John Irving |
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cfb761d
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Nothing moves at the Hotel New Hampshire! We're screwed down here-for life!
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John Irving |
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f5e9b1f
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It doesn't really matter who said it - it's so obviously true. Bevore you can write anything, you have to notice something.
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writing
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John Irving |
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d586bd2
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The time to read Madame Bovary is when your romantic hopes and desires have crashed, and you will believe that your future relationships will have disappointing - even devastating - consequences.
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relationships
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John Irving |
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c941859
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No one could have fathomed what a life he'd led, for it was chiefly a life lived in his mind.
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John Irving |