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afeab8a
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we don't enjoy giving directions in New Hampshire--we tend to think that if you don't know where you're going, you don't belong where you are. In Canada, we give directions more freely--to anywhere, to anyone who asks.
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John Irving |
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d519662
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The Solitude Virgin, Lupe said, was "a white-faced pinhead in a fancy gown." It further irked Lupe that Guadalupe got second-class treatment in the Basilica de Nuestra Senora de la Soledad; the Guadalupe altar was off to the left side of the center aisle--an unlit portrait of the dark-skinned virgin (not even a statue) was her sole recognition. And Our Lady of Guadalupe was indigenous; she was a native, an Indian; she was what Lupe meant by..
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John Irving |
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3003785
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As a self-described Guadalupe girl, Lupe was sensitive to Guadalupe being overshadowed by the "Mary Monster." Lupe not only meant that Mary was the most dominant of the Catholic Church's "stable" of virgins; Lupe believed that the Virgin Mary was also "a domineering virgin."
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John Irving |
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cf9c2cc
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There was a twofold awkwardness attached to Juan Diego's attempts to have sex with the life-size Guadalupe doll--better said, the awkwardness of Juan Diego's imagining he was having sex with the plastic virgin.
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John Irving |
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13d3cc4
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Don't ever die," Juan Diego had written to Brother Pepe from Iowa City. What Juan Diego meant was that HE would die if he lost Pepe."
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John Irving |
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01b3b5e
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There weren't so many transvestite prostitutes in Oaxaca in those days; Flor really stood out, and not only because she was tall. She was almost beautiful; what was beautiful about her truly wasn't affected by the softest-looking trace of a mustache on her upper lip, though Lupe noticed it.
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John Irving |
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c81cfe4
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Lupe began to recite a list of reasons. "One: love of dogs," she started. "Two: to be stars--in a circus, we might be famous. Three: because the parrot man will come visit us, and our future--" She stopped for a second. "His future, anyway," Lupe said, pointing to her brother. "His future is in the parrot man's hands--I just know it is, circus or no circus."
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John Irving |
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3e9ddcc
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Always be suspicious of easy work," Dr. Wilbur Larch once said to Homer Wells."
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John Irving |
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9d2b7fd
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Like the rooftop dogs, they were lost souls--they were running wild, or they drifted around town like ghosts.
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John Irving |
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7895ab6
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wherever Melony went, she would not be without guidance, she would not be without love, without faith; she had a good book with her. If only she'll keep reading it, and reading it
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John Irving |
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6622c50
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It won't take much of a city to be a city for me
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John Irving |
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c78840a
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Even Clark French's novels exerted a tenacious and combative goodwill: his main characters, lost souls and serial sinners, always found redemption; the act of redeeming usually followed a moral low point; the novels predictably ended in a crescendo of benevolence.
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John Irving |
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705f0cd
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never spoke of it. He took the miracle to his grave. All Andrew ever said about the voyage was that a nun had taught him how to play mah-jongg. Something must have happened during one of their games.
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John Irving |
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d1dea3c
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Well, that boy's voice," my grandmother told me, "that boy's voice could bring those mice back to life!" And it occurs to me now that Owen's voice was the voice of all those murdered mice, coming back to life--with a vengeance."
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John Irving |
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d714da5
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If you want to worry about something, you ought to worry about how Guadalupe was looking at you. Like she's still making up her mind about you. Guadalupe hasn't decided about you," the clairvoyant child had told him."
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John Irving |
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f0ba59a
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It was best not to ask Pepe if reading or Jesus had saved him, or which one had saved him more.
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John Irving |
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1fa4abc
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GUYS," Owen Meany said. That spring, less than a month before Gravesend Academy's graduation exercises, the TV showed us a map of Thailand; five thousand U.S. Marines and fifty jet fighters were being"
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John Irving |
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0454083
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IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE YOU LEARNED IT--IT'S A GIFT. IF YOU CARE ABOUT SOMETHING, YOU HAVE TO PROTECT IT--IF YOU'RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO FIND A WAY OF LIFE YOU LOVE, YOU HAVE TO FIND THE COURAGE TO LIVE IT.
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John Irving |
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15c4b13
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Most dump kids are believers; maybe you have to believe in something when you see so many discarded things.
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John Irving |
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9cd3cbd
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If Garp was going to play lacrosse, Jenny thought, where would he go? Not out, because it's dark; he'd lose the ball.
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John Irving |
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0a7eb83
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He hadn't known many British, but some of them seemed crazy to him, and so it seemed a small thing to agree to--and Wally thought it was wise to agree with whoever it was who held the catheter.
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John Irving |
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08212be
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Ad majorem Dei gloriam--to the greater glory of God.
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John Irving |
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1d854cf
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Technical Sergeant Garp, the late gunner whose familiarity with violent death cannot be exaggerated, served with the Eighth Air Force - the air force that bombed the Continent from England.
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John Irving |
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01a075a
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But Lupe both genuinely worshiped Our Lady of Guadalupe and fiercely doubted her; Lupe's doubt was borne by the child's judgmental sense that Guadalupe had submitted to the Virgin Mary--that Guadalupe was complicitous in allowing Mother Mary to be in control.
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John Irving |
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1146c34
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Don't grown-ups ever get over things?
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John Irving |
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d386bf0
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An aura of fate had marked him. He moved slowly; he often appeared to be lost in thought, or in his imagination--as if his future were predetermined, and he wasn't resisting it.
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John Irving |
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205c358
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And you wouldn't want to bring her home--at least not to entertain your guests or amuse the children. No, Juan Diego thought--you would want to keep her, all for yourself.
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John Irving |
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2b5e147
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POKUD TI NA NECEM ZALEZI, MUSIS SI TO CHRANIT; POKUD MAS TO STESTI, ZE JSI NASEL ZPUSOB ZIVOTA, KTERY TI VYHOVUJE, MUSIS NAJIT ODVAHU HO ZIT.
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John Irving |
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d78db3a
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As a fourteen-year-old, he'd not been old enough to have sympathy for her--for either the child or the adult that she was.
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John Irving |
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4eaf584
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What a power I had discovered! I felt certain I could refill those bleacher seats--one day, I was sure, I could "see" everyone who'd been there; I could find that special someone my mother had waved to, at the end."
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John Irving |
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f13ce5e
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They were childless--Dan Needham suggested that their sexual roles might be so "reversed" as to make childbearing difficult--and their attendance at Little League games was marked by a constant disapproval of the sport: that little girls were not allowed to play in the Little League was an example of sexual stereotyping that exercised the Dowlings' humorlessness and fury. Should they have a daughter, they warned, she would play in the Littl..
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John Irving |
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6260632
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Every American should be forced to live outside the United States for a year or two. Americans should be forced to see how ridiculous they appear to the rest of the world!
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John Irving |
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dd04218
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We all go through a phase--it lasts a lifetime, for some of us--when we're embarrassed by our parents; we don't want them hanging around us because we're afraid they'll do or say something that will make us feel ashamed of them.
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John Irving |
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c0eff22
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The chain of events, the links in our lives--what leads us where we're going, the courses we follow to our ends, what we don't see coming, and what we do--all this can be mysterious, or simply unseen, or even obvious.
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John Irving |
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3f604f4
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Y naturalmente, para ser justos, lo mejor de las ellenjamesianas habia consistido en dar a conocer el pavor general que tan brutalmente amenazaba a mujeres y ninas. Para muchas ellenjamesianas, la imitacion del horrible deslenguamiento no habia sido "enteramente politico". Habia sido una identificacion muy personal. Por supuesto, en algunos casos las ellenjamesianas eran mujeres que tambien habian sido violadas y lo que querian decir era qu..
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John Irving |
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c6df01f
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Sometimes, when we are labeled, when we are branded, our brand becomes our calling;
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John Irving |
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a9907ab
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At first it had slashed up the little silk pockets of her purse. Then she found part of an old thermometer container that slipped over the head of the scalpel, capping it like a fountain pen. It was this cap she removed when the soldier moved into the seat beside her and stretched his arm along the armrest they were (absurdly) meant to share.
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John Irving |
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2507a7e
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THAT IS WHERE THIS COUNTRY IS HEADED--IT IS HEADED TOWARD OVERSIMPLIFICATION. YOU WANT TO SEE A PRESIDENT OF THE FUTURE? TURN ON ANY TELEVISION ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING--FIND ONE OF THOSE HOLY ROLLERS: THAT'S HIM, THAT'S THE NEW MISTER PRESIDENT! AND DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE FUTURE OF ALL THOSE KIDS WHO ARE GOING TO FALL IN THE CRACKS OF THIS GREAT, BIG, SLOPPY SOCIETY OF OURS? I JUST MET HIM; HE'S A TALL, SKINNY, FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY NAMED 'DIC..
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John Irving |
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355622b
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For a terrible time of life a teen-ager deceives himself; he believes he can trick the world. He believes he is invulnerable. An adolescent who is an orphan at this phase is in danger of never growing up.
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orphan
teenage
deception
vulnerable
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John Irving |
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0a4af8c
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patriotism is not necessarily defined as blind devotion to a president's particular agenda--and that to dispute a presidential policy is not necessarily anti-American.
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John Irving |
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c6b00c6
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No matter what my fucking last words were, please say they were these: 'I have always known that the pursuit of excellence is a lethal habit.
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humor
last-words
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John Irving |
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b3cda6a
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People are like that .... They need to make their own worst experiences universal. It gives them a kind of support.' And who can blame them? It is just infuriating to argue with someone like that; because of an experience that has denied them their humanity, they go around denying another kind of humanity in others, which is the truth of human variety -- it stands alongside our sameness.
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rape
humanity
victimhood
experience
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John Irving |
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348a4af
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TODAY'S THE DAY! '... HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME, THOUGH HE WERE DEAD, YET SHALL HE LIVE; AND WHOSOEVER LIVETH AND BELIEVETH IN ME SHALL NEVER DIE.
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John Irving |
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8b392f6
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We tend to think that if you don't know where you're goin, you don't belong where you are.
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john irving |