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009af69
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According to my mother, I was a fiction writer before I'd written any ficton, by wich she meant not only that I invented things, or made things up, but that I prefered this kind of fantasising or pure imagining to what other people generally liked - she meant reality, of course.
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John Irving |
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778dfe9
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return trips, to this day...are simply invitations to dull trances or leaden slumber,
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John Irving |
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83886ba
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Sometimes it is the only worthwhile product you can salvage from a day: what you make to eat. With writing, I find, you can have all the right ingredients, give plenty of time and care, and still get nothing. Also true of love.
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John Irving |
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ca64705
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Whoever acquired any real or substantive intelligence from reading newspapers? I'm sure I have no in-depth comprehension of American villany; yet I can't leave the news alone! You'd think I might profit from my experience with ice cream. If I have ice cream in my freezer, I'll eat it--I'll eat all of it, all at once. Therefore, I've learned not to buy ice cream. Newspapers are even worse for me than ice cream; headlines, and the big issues ..
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John Irving |
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52544c5
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There were some very good books in the backseat of the little Volkswagen; good books were the best protection from evil that Pepe had actually held in his hands--you could not hold faith in Jesus in your hands, not in quite the same way you could hold good books.
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John Irving |
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a12b42c
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IF WE CAN DO IT IN UNDER FOUR SECONDS, WE CAN DO IT IN UNDER THREE," he said. "IT JUST TAKES A LITTLE MORE FAITH." "It takes more practice," I told him irritably. "FAITH TAKES PRACTICE," said Owen Meany."
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John Irving |
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3d1e8bd
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Every time you throw a snail off the dock," Ray teased Homer Wells, "you're making someone start his whole life over." "Maybe I'm doing him a favor," said Homer Wells, the orphan."
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John Irving |
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5915692
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The way you remember or dream about your loved ones - the ones who are gone - you can't stop their endings from jumping ahead of the rest of their stories. You don't get to choose the chronology of what you dream, or the order of events in which you remember someone. In your mind - in your dreams, in your memories - sometimes the story begins with the epilogue.
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thoughts
relationships
memories
friends
inspiration
family
death
life
love
end
memory
nostalgia
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John Irving |
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6ab79c7
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What the hell is the matter with Eddie? Ruth was thinking. If he doesn't stop staring at me, I'm going to drive off the road! Hannah had also noticed that Eddie was staring at Ruth. What the hell is the matter with Eddie? Hannah was thinking. Since when did the asshole take an interest in a younger woman?
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John Irving |
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ede1d33
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It was not out of love that I wanted to meet my father, but out of the darkest curiosity - to be able to recognize, in myself, what evil I might be capable of.
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John Irving |
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ae09fbd
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Once the state starts providing, it feels free to hand out the rules, too!" Larch blurted hastily. ..."In a better world..." she began patiently. "No, not in a better world!" he cried. "In this one--in this world. I take this world as a given. Talk to me about this world!" ... "Oh, I can't always be right," Larch said tiredly. "Yes, I know," Nurse Caroline said sympathetically. "It's because even a good man can't always be right that we ne..
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institutions
laws
rules
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John Irving |
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e2370d3
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in the hospital, Jenny Fields felt she was making up for lost time; she was discovering that people weren't much more mysterious, or much more attractive, than clams.
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John Irving |
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c3f57c7
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Not every collision course comes as a surprise.
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John Irving |
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7c5f4f2
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A man named Hero washed the press cloths; Meany Hyde told Homer that the man had been a kind of hero, once. 'That's all I heard. He's been comin' here for years, but he was a hero. Just once,' Meany added, as if there might be more shame attached to the rarity of the man's heroism than there was glory to be sung for his moment in the sun.
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John Irving |
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267b24d
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Again, Homer felt the nudge in his ribs, and Mr. Rose said, mildly, 'You all so uneducated - Homer's havin' a little fun with you.' When the bottle of rum passed from man to man, Mr. Rose just passed it along. 'Don't the name Homer mean nothin' to you?' Mr. Rose asked the men. 'I think I heard of it,' the cook Black Pan said. 'Homer was the world's first storyteller!' Mr. Rose announced. The nudge at Homer's ribs was back, and Mr. Rose said..
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John Irving |
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d5da1f1
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In Wally's bedroom Homer marveled at how the world was simultaneously being invented and destroyed. Nothing marvelous about that, Dr. Larch would have assured him. At St. Cloud's, except for the irritation about sugar stamps and other aspects of the rationing, very little was changed by the war. (Or by what people once singled out as the Depression, thought Wilbur Larch.) We are an orphanage; we provide these services; we stay the same - if..
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John Irving |
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25e7fba
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What a new sense of security Homer had felt in that moment of laughter with friends in the enclosed dark of the moving car, and what a sense of freedom the car itself gave to him--its seemingly effortless journeying was a wonder to Homer Wells, for whom the idea of motion (not to mention the sense of change) was accomplished only rarely and only with enormous strife.
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John Irving |
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bd279a6
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Doris Wales was a woman with straw-blond hair whose body appeared to have been dipped in corn oil; then she must have put her dress on, wet. The dress grabbed at all her parts, and plunged and sagged over the gaps in her body; a lover's line of hickeys, or love bites - 'love-sucks,' Franny called them - dotted Doris's chest and throat like a violent rash; the welts were like wounds from a whip. She wore plum-covered lipstick, some of which ..
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John Irving |
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138902c
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But the available light in Twisted River was dim and growing dimmer. The dance-hall door blew (or was slammed) closed, cutting off Teresa Brewer as suddenly as if Six-Pack had taken the singer's slender throat in her hands. When the dance-hall door blew (or was kicked) open again, Tony Bennett was crooning "Rags to Riches." Dominic didn't for a moment doubt that the town's eternal violence was partly spawned by irredeemable music."
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John Irving |
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536103f
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The Winkles were in the business of manufacturing sensations for people who were so removed from any sensations of their own making or circumstances that only high (but simulated) adventure could provoke response from them at all. Dr. Larch was not impressed with the Winkles' "business"; he knew they were simply rich people who did exactly what they wanted to do and needed to call what they did something more serious-sounding than play. Wha..
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John Irving |
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55a4bda
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Ah, well..." I started to say, and then stopped. So that was where he was going; I'd heard it before. Richard had told me that I'd not been standing in my mother's shoes in 1942, when I was born; he'd said I couldn't, or shouldn't, judge her. It was my not forgiving her that irked him-it was my intolerance of her intolerance that bugged him."
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John Irving |
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ffd3940
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And Juan Diego had selected this particular book because it was in English; he'd wanted more practice reading English, though his less-than-rapt audience (Lupe and Rivera and the disagreeable dog Dirty White) might have understood him better en espanol.
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John Irving |
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34e9141
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He was asleep--he was still dreaming--though his lips were moving. No one heard him; no one hears a writer who's writing in his sleep.
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John Irving |
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9c98401
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THERE'S NO NEED TO BE CRUDE,' said Owen Meany.
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John Irving |
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72403b0
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So we do not lose heart...Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal...So we are always of good courage. We know that while ..
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John Irving |
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dd9fd82
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Flor and Juan Diego and Lupe were the Iowan's projects; Edward Bonshaw saw them through the eyes of a born reformer, but he did not love them less for looking upon them in this fashion.
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John Irving |
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8555383
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What Brother Pepe saw in Edward Bonshaw was a man who looked like he belonged--like a man who had never felt at home, but who'd suddenly found his place in the scheme of things.
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John Irving |
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0568413
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Sic transit gloria mundi.
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John Irving |
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65abb15
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As Garp put it, 'You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else.' Even if these so-called endings and beginnings are illusions.
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John Irving |
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5d03c0c
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why Edward Bonshaw had been so attached to it? "A glooming peace this morning with it brings"--well, yes, and why would such darkness ever depart? Who can happily think of what else happened to Juliet and her Romeo, and not dwell on what happened to them at the end of their story?"
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John Irving |
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0842a43
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SHE WAS JUST LIKE OUR WHOLE COUNTRY--NOT QUITE YOUNG ANYMORE, BUT NOT 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 DESIRABLE SHE WAS! THAT'S WHAT SHE WAS: SHE WAS DESIRABLE. SHE WAS FUNNY AND SEXY..
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John Irving |
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9f04e09
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I think you're being selfish." "What do you mean, selfish?" Wally asked. "A war is for your country, it's serving your country!" "To you, it's an adventure," Candy said. "That's what's selfish about it."
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John Irving |
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1ca58a2
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If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.
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teaching
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John Irving |
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f5517fa
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Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!
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John Irving |
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b960d6e
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Your memory is a monster; you forget--it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you--and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!
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John Irving |
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1148039
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They were members of Maine's very small money class. Their business, as they ridiculously called it, didn't make a cent, but they didn't need to make money; they were born rich. Their needless enterprise consisted of taking people to the wilderness and creating for them the sensation that they were lost there; they also took people shooting down rapids in frail rafts or canoes, creating for them the sensation that they would surely be bashe..
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John Irving |
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139aff9
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The only reason for something to happen in a novel is that it's the perfect thing to have happen at that time.
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John Irving |
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ebb409e
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Candy took the bathing suit from her and used the suit to wipe the tears from Rose Rose's face. "You're fine, you're just fine," Candy said to the girl. "And you're going to feel better. No one's going to hurt you."
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John Irving |
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2fd3a40
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I can't read Tess of the d'Urbervilles!" I cried. "It's too hard!" "YOU MEAN IT'S HARD TO MAKE YOURSELF READ IT, YOU MEAN IT'S HARD TO MAKE YOURSELF PAY ATTENTION," he said. "BUT IT'S NOT TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES THAT'S HARD. THOMAS HARDY MAY BORE YOU BUT HE'S VERY EASY TO UNDERSTAND--HE'S OBVIOUS, HE TELLS YOU EVERYTHING YOU HAVE TO KNOW." "He tells me more than I want to know!" I cried. "YOUR BOREDOM IS YOUR PROBLEM," said Owen Meany. "I..
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John Irving |
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8dedcea
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You remember how I used to tell you that I was Doctor Larch's helper?" Homer asked Angel. "Right," said Angel Wells. "Well, I got very good--at helping him," Homer said. "Very good. I'm not an amateur"
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John Irving |
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bc18556
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It had been a startling day for young Copperfield: most of the morning confined in an enema-bag carton; his first attempt at flight; his long fall through the weeds; and then sitting on that dead man's face.
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John Irving |
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ecd3984
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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.
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John Irving |
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573db8f
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We can afford the workers' compensation, Harry--he'll watch what he says the time next, won't he?" Nils would say. "The 'next time,' Nils," Grandpa Harry would gently correct his old friend."
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John Irving |
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8b5b6b6
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When the ship suddenly pitched more steeply, the bookworm lost his grip. He came skipping over the toilet seats--his ass made a slapping sound--until he collided with my father at the opposite end of the row of toilets. "Sorry--I just had to keep reading!" he said. Then the ship rolled in the other direction, and the soldier sallied forth, skipping over the seats again. When he'd slid all the way to the last toilet, he either lost control o..
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John Irving |