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44601e4
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There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep.
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John Irving |
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7874ff6
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And so this added consideration - that she never get pregnant - contributed to the moderation of their coupling, which was almost always managed under conditions harsh enough to win the approval of New England's founding fathers
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John Irving |
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3160ef3
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De alguna manera -habia argumentado Garp- la vida es demasiado. La vida es un folletin melodramatico no apto para menores, John
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John Irving |
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143975d
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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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762d9ac
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Small towns may revile you, but they have to keep you-they can't turn you away.
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small-communities
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John Irving |
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294bf87
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As for my faith: I've become my father's son-that is, I've become the kind of believer that Pastor Merrill used to be. Doubt one minute, faith the next-sometimes inspired, sometimes in despair. Canon Campbell taught me to ask myself a question when the latter state settles upon me. Whom do I know who's alive whom I love? Good question-one that can bring you back to life. These days, I love Dan Needham and the Rev. Katherine Keeling; I know ..
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John Irving |
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2a1597f
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May God watch over your soul, which no man may abuse.
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John Irving |
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9bd378f
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It was not necessarily what Ketchum might have said about the war in Iraq, or the never-ending mess in the Middle East, that particularly interested Danny or Six-Pack Pam. It was what Ketchum would have said about anything. It was the old logger's voice that Danny and Six-Pack wanted to hear. Thus we try to keep our heroes alive; hence we remember them
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John Irving |
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217a69a
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It was from just a few sentences that a writer learned anything from another writer.
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John Irving |
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3b945cd
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the surprised bookseller, whose name (inexplicably) was Mendelssohn. He was no relation to the German composer, and this Mendelssohn either overliked his last name or disliked his first so much that he never revealed it. (When Ted had once asked him his first name, Mendelssohn had said only: "Not Felix.")"
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John Irving |
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455be00
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Wallace Worthington would have reminded Wilbur Larch of someone he might have met at the Channing-Peabodys', where Dr. Larch went to perform his second abortion - the rich people's abortion, as Larch thought of it. Wallace Worthington would strike Homer Wells as what a real King of New England should look like.
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John Irving |
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644a7a9
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It's a no-win argument--that business of what we're born with and what our environment does to us. And it's a boring argument, because it simplifies the mysteries that attend both our birth and our growth.
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John Irving |
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64645b9
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Faith itself is a miracle,
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John Irving |
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3b20442
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But first, he knew he had to apologize for hurting Dr. Larch's feelings - it had all just slipped out of him, and it made him almost cry to think that he had cause Dr. Larch any suffering. He went straight across the hall to the dispensary, where he could see what he thought were Dr. Larch's feet extending off the foot of the dispensary bed; the dispensary medicine cabinets blocked the rest of the bed from view. He spoke to Dr. Larch's feet..
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John Irving |
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8510b24
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Candy felt helpless; no one seemed to understand why she was standing there. Children were colliding with her at hip level, and this awkward, darkly handsome young man, who was surely her own age but seemed somehow older...was she supposed to tell him why she'd come to St. Cloud's? Couldn't anyone tell by just looking at her? Then Homer Wells looked at her in that way; their eyes met. Candy thought that he had seen her many times before, th..
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John Irving |
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c70d41a
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I guess [Mrs. Reagan is] one of those many American adults of a certain advanced age who believe that the root of all evil lies in the area of young people's self-abuse. Someone should tell Mrs. Reagan that young people-- not even young people on drugs-- are not the ones responsible for the major problems besetting the world!
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John Irving |
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3f5c1f6
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Wilbur Larch knew that freedom was an orphan's most dangerous illusion, and when he finally heard from Homer, he scanned the oddly formal letter, which was disappointing in its lack of detail. Regarding illusions, and all the rest, there was simply no evidence. 'I am learning to swim,' wrote Homer Wells. (I know! I know! Tell me about it! Thought Wilbur Larch.) 'I do better at driving,' Homer added.
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John Irving |
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33c4ceb
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Homer Wells, listening to Big Dot Taft, felt like her voice - dulled. Wally was away, Candy was away, and the anatomy of a rabbit was, after Clara, no challenge; the migrants, whom he'd so eagerly anticipated, were just plain hard workers; life was just a job. He had grown up without noticing when? Was there nothing remarkable in the transition?
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John Irving |
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4a5f993
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What we witnessed with the death of Kennedy was the triumph of television; what we saw with his assassination, and with his funeral, was the beginning of television's dominance of our culture-- for television is at its most solemnly self-serving and at its mesmerizing best when it is depicting the untimely deaths of the chosen and the golden. It is as witness to the butchery of heroes in their prime-- and of all holy-seeming innocents-- tha..
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John Irving |
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010828b
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Of course, if I write a first-person novel about a woman writer, I am inviting every book reviewer to apply the autobiographical label -- to conclude that I am writing about myself. But one must never not write a certain kind of novel out of fear of what the reaction to it will be.
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writing-life
critics
first-person-narrative
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John Irving |
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e8ee02a
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The two old secretaries conversed in the manner of hostile but toothless male dogs.
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John Irving |
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8eb2ea1
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Mr. Wiggin injected a kind of horror-movie element into the Christmas miracle; to the rector, every Bible story was-if properly understood-threatening.
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John Irving |
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a79b27e
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What is this fascination the world has with death?
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John Irving |
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d8439d6
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She asserted that the best fictional detail was a chosen detail, not a remembered one - for fictional truth was not only the truth of observation, which was the truth of mere journalism. The best fictional detail was the detail that should have defined the character or the episode or the atmosphere. Fictional truth was what should have happened in a story - not necessarily what did happen or what had happened.
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truth
writing-craft
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John Irving |
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43409cf
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You can't possibly know that you're going to be a writer!" Miss Frost said. "It's not a career choice."
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John Irving |
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2c4ec8b
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Never trust a man with a lunatic wife in an attic," Richard told me. "And anyone named Heathcliff should make you suspicious."
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John Irving |
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b06fcc9
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God, I think I just hit a high E-flat - and I really it!" Esmeralda said, after one of her more prolonged orgasms, but my ears were warm and sweaty, and my head had been held so tightly between her thighs that I hadn't heard anything."
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John Irving |
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185c2e5
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That was when Angel Wells became a fiction writer, whether he knew it or not. That's when he learned how to make the make-believe matter to him more than real life mattered to him; that's when he learned how to paint a picture that was not real and never would be real, but in order to be believed at all- even on a sunny Indian summer day- it had to be better made and seem more real than real; it had to sound at least possible.
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John Irving |
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a6fd013
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Mr. Merrill was most appealing because he reassured us that doubt was the essence of faith, and not faith's opposite.
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John Irving |
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c11f92f
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What do you think I imagine making love to a vagina would be like? Maybe like having sex with a ballroom!
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vagina
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John Irving |
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8e0a7a7
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Well, you finally got me," Helen had whispered to him, tearfully, but Garp had sprawled there, on his back on the wrestling mat, wondering who had gotten whom."
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sex
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John Irving |
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70fcbaa
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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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fcb9ecc
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There were those apres-sex moments when, in a half-asleep or forgetting that I was with a woman, I would reach out and touch her vagina- only to suddenly pull back my hand, as if surprised.
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John Irving |
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4f7a4e7
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David Copperfield had a fever when he'd gone to bed, and Larch went to check on the boy. Dr. Larch was relieved to feel that young Copperfield's fever had broken; the boy's forehead was cool, and a slight sweat chilled the boy's neck, which Larch carefully rubbed dry with a towel. There was not much moonlight; therefore, Larch felt unobserved. He bent over Copperfield and kissed him, much in the manner that he remembered kissing Homer Wells..
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John Irving |
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cb0a436
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it was a feeling with nowhere to go. Was that what love was, and how it came to you--leaving you no options for its use?
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John Irving |
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12327fc
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Because I was a Wheelwright-and, therefore, a New England snob-I'd assumed that Phoenix was largely composed of Mormons and Baptists and Republicans;
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John Irving |
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651dd39
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Further along" is fairly specific compared to other New Hampshire forms of directions; 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." --
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John Irving |
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353cd30
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For Homer Wells, it was different. He did not imagine leaving St. Cloud's. The Princes of Maine that Homer saw, the Kings of New England that he imagined -- they reigned at the court of St. Cloud's, they traveled nowhere; they didn't get to go to sea; they never even saw the ocean. But somehow, even to Homer Wells, Dr. Larch's benediction was uplifting, full of hope. These Princes of Maine, these Kings of New England, these orphans of St. C..
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John Irving |
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1e20652
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MADE FOR TELEVISION!' said Owen Meany.
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John Irving |
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4668fe8
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Many of Juan Diego's demons had been his childhood companions-he knew them so well, they were as familiar as friends.
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John Irving |
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260f47a
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What worse awareness is there than to know there would have been a better outcome if you'd never done anything at all?
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John Irving |
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73338e8
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Bill is a writer, but he writes in the first-person voice in a style that is tell-all confessional; in fact, his fiction sounds as much like a memoir as he can make it sound.
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John Irving |
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a82a8cf
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Juan Diego lived there, in the past--reliving, in his imagination, the losses that had marked him.
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John Irving |
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a84aee2
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If you live long enough, Bill - it's a world of epilogues," Richard Abbott said."
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John Irving |