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91141a5
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Like any good novel, it lulled him into an almost tranquil state of awareness before it jolted him - it caught him completely by surprise.
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John Irving |
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addd49b
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Listen to me, Bill," Richard said. "Let the librarian be your new best friend. If you like what she's given you to read, trust her. The library, the theater, a passion for novels and plays - well, Bill, this could be the door to your future. At your age, I lived in a library! Now novels and plays are my life."
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John Irving |
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5b14590
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Ciocia Marta (....) w obronie demokracji potrafila stac sie tyranem.
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John Irving |
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450a867
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Homer Wells non si sentiva in salvo. Chi mai, innamorato e insoddisfatto per come il suo amore e ricambiato, chi mai si sente in salvo? Al contrario, Homer Wells si sentiva preso di mira e perseguitato in modo speciale.
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John Irving |
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e7d8b9d
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Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there was no room for doubt, there would be no room for me. --FREDERICK BUECHNER
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John Irving |
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d4add57
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What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us are wrapped up in parentheses.
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John Irving |
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2d68dc7
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And the thing about being in love," Wally said to Angel, "is that you can't force anyone. It's natural to want someone you love to do what you want, or what you think would be good for them, but you have to let everything happen to them. You can't interfere with people you love any more than you're supposed to interfere with people you don't even know. And that's hard," he added, "because you often feel like interfering--you want to be the ..
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John Irving |
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7e1fb2d
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energy begets energy.
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John Irving (Author) |
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336bd4c
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I walked all the way through the Heldenplatz - the Plaza of Heroes - and stood where thousands of cheering fascists had greeted Hitler, once. I thought that fanatics would always have an audience; all one might hope to influence was the size of the audience.
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John Irving |
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9ee2332
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Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't.
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memories
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John Irving |
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97188cd
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She say to tell you you was the nicest," Muddy told the boy. "She say to tell your dad he a hero, and that you was the nicest."
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John Irving |
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75db2fa
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Dear God!" the cook cried. "Soon all the wood on Twisted River will be pulpwood--for paper! What about toboggans is worse than paper?" "Books are made from paper!" Ketchum declared. "What role do toboggans play in your son's education?"
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John Irving |
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28a7e2c
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Old Lowji's nasty remark would haunt Farrokh forever: "Immigrants are immigrants all their lives!" Once someone makes such a negative pronouncement, you might refute it but you never forget it; some ideas are so vividly planted, they become visible objects, actual things."
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John Irving |
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8571066
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In other parts of the world, they have double-bed sheets," wrote Wilbur Larch in A Brief History of St. Cloud's. "Here in St. Cloud's we do without--we just do without."
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John Irving |
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df0d37f
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Motherfucking Christ," Gerry said to me on that Christmas Day, 1960. "Isn't it perfectly possible that Nils and his wife are too depressed to have kids? The prospect of having kids depresses the shit out of me, and I'm neither suicidal nor Norwegian!" --
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John Irving |
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702c4f2
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That Christmastime night, all Mr. Lockley could manage to direct to Elaine was a minimally cordial bow--as if he were saying the unutterable, "Good evening, knocked-up faculty daughter. How are you managing now, you smelly little slut?"
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John Irving |
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6962b41
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But comedy is ingrained. A writer doesn't choose to be comic. You can choose a plot, or not to have one. You can choose your characters. But comedy is not a choice; it just comes out that way.
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John Irving |
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52dd6f9
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The prostitute became uncomfortable -- as if 'talk' were in a category of aberrant behavior, short of which she drew the line. 'You have to pay more for that,' the redhead said. 'Talk can go on for a long time.
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John Irving |
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4475063
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Garp was a natural storyteller; he could make things up, one right after the other, and they seemed to fit. But what did they mean?
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John Irving |
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ef15bd0
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Later, in her suite at the Stanhope, Ruth resisted calling Eddie. Besides, at the New York Athletic Club, they probably refused to answer the phone after a certain hour. Or else they would demand to know, when you called, if you were wearing a coat and tie.
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John Irving |
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272a276
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As a police officer, he'd found that uncontained anger was nothing but a menace to him. Whereas contained anger greatly appealed to him, and he believed that people who weren't angry at all were basically unobservant.
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John Irving |
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6bc2a5c
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Novels were not arguments; a story worked, or it didn't, on its own merits. What did it matter if a detail was real or imagined? What mattered was that the detail seemed real, and that it was absolutely the best detail for the circumstance. That wasn't much of a theory, but it was all Ruth could truly commit herself to at the moment. It was time to retire that old lecture, and her penance was to endure the compliments of her former credo.
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writing-craft
writing-process
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John Irving |
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161cd3a
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Ruth knew very well what the killer thought he had heard: he'd heard the sound of someone trying not to make a sound - that's what he'd heard.
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John Irving |
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cc1a739
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Here was the world-famous novelist with her penchant for detail; yet, in her observations of a prostitute with a customer, she had failed to come away with the most important detail of all. She could never identify the murderer; she could barely describe him. She'd made a point of not looking at him!
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writers
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John Irving |
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cdfdb65
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Ruth Cole was a novelist; novelists are not at their best when they go off half-cocked. She believed that she would prepare what she was going to tell the police - preferably in writing.
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planning
writers
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John Irving |
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6fda3f2
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Treading water, a little dog-paddling--it's a lot like writing a novel, Clark," the dump reader told his former student. "It feels like you're going a long way, because it's a lot of work, but you're basically covering old ground--you're hanging out in familiar territory."
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John Irving |
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3e05647
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Owen was so tiny, we loved to pick him up; in truth, we couldn't resist picking him up. We thought it was a miracle: how little he weighed. This was also incongruous because Owen came from a family in the granite business. The Meany Granite Quarry was a big place, the equipment for blasting and cutting the granite slabs was heavy and dangerous-looking; granite itself is such a rough, substantial rock. But the only aura of the granite quarry..
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John Irving |
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d33d714
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A man you like, you mean, Tabitha?" my grandmother asked. "I wouldn't mention him if I didn't like him," my mother said. "I want you to meet him," she said to us all. "You've dated him?" my grandmother asked. "No! I just met him--just today, on today's train!" my mother said. "And already you like him?" Lydia asked, in a tone of voice so perfectly copied from my grandmother that I had to look to see which one of them was speaking. "Well, ye..
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John Irving |
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d930f6e
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With women, Ernie Holm had some experience at taking no for an answer.
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John Irving |
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032dd14
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But this is what we do: we dream on, and our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them. That's what happens, like it or not. And because that is what happens, this is what we need: we need a good, smart bear.
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John Irving |
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1ff8162
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The code of small towns is simple but encompassing: if many forms of craziness are allowed, many forms of cruelty are ignored. Piggy
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John Irving |
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25e9d68
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But she drew the line at television. It took no effort to watch--it was infinitely more beneficial to the soul, and to the intelligence, to read or to listen--and what she imagined there was to watch on TV appalled her; she had, of course, only read about it.
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John Irving |
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3bf59a2
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The other thing preferable about the weekday services is that no one is there against his will. That's another distraction on Sundays. Who hasn't suffered the experience of having an entire family seated in the pew in front of you, the children at war with each other and sandwiched between the mother and father who are forcing them to go to church? An aura of stale arguments almost visibly clings to the hasty clothing of the children. "This..
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John Irving |
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c501d9a
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but you live your life at the time you live it--you don't have much of an overview when what's happening to you is still happening.
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John Irving |
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c288c42
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When, if only for a moment, the novelist steps out of the creator's role, what roles are there for the novelist to step into? There are only creators of stories and characters in stories; there are no other roles. Ruth had never felt such anticipation before. She felt she had absolutely no will to take control of what happened next; in fact, she was exhilarated not to be in charge. She was happy not to be the novelist. She was not the write..
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John Irving |
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48e9b2c
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Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me the most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.
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John Irving |
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e427f76
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Dan would entertain Owen and me by describing Mr. Tubulari's pentathlon, his "winterthon." "The first event," Dan Needham said, "is something wholesome, like splitting a cord of wood--points off, if you break your ax. Then you have to run ten miles in deep snow, or snowshoe for thirty. Then you chop a hole in the ice, and--carrying your ax--swim a mile under a frozen lake, chopping your way out at the opposite shore. Then you build an igloo..
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John Irving |
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d33b2f8
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There is no excuse for cruelty, but--at an orphanage--perhaps we are obliged to withhold love; if you fail to withhold love at an orphanage, you will create an orphanage that no orphan will willingly leave. You will create a Homer Wells--a true orphan, because his only home will always be at St. Cloud's.
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John Irving |
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c9db4c9
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it struck him as a brilliant accusation to make of anyone who was slightly (or hugely) different. It was the best rumor to start about anyone because it could never be proved or disproved.
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John Irving |
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339db53
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Here come the characters who comprise the movie vermin, the Hollywood scum, the film slime--the aforementioned "unscrupulous cowards of mediocrity." Fortunately, they are minor characters, yet so distasteful that their introduction has been delayed as long as possible."
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John Irving |
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8316615
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I must part with you for my whole life," she read, with horror. "I must begin a new existence amongst strange faces and strange scenes." The truth of that closed the book for her, forever."
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John Irving |
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fafc655
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worst of all were the highly unlikely science-fiction novels, or the equally implausible futuristic tales. Couldn't my mom and Nana Victoria see for themselves that I was both mystified and frightened by life on Earth?
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John Irving |
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8997385
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Finches are seed eaters, but Dr. Daruwalla didn't know this, nor did the doctor know that the green parrot perching on the vine had feet with two toes pointing forward and two backward. These were the details he missed, and they contributed to the growing list of things he didn't know. This was the kind of Everyman he was--a little lost, a little misinformed (or uninformed), almost everywhere he ever was.
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John Irving |
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f39a3e3
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not simple intolerance but the tolerance of intolerance, which allows the intolerance to persist.
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John Irving |