John Irving Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about John Irving

John Irving Quotes & Sayings

Happy to read and share the best inspirational John Irving quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.

What do they expect of a one-eyed, one-armed artist-- and the son of Garp? No flaws? — John Irving

IF SOME PREACHER'S AN ASSHOLE, THAT'S NOT PROOF THAT GOD DOESN'T EXIST! (page 286) — John Irving

I'm not afraid, but I'm very nervous. — John Irving

I didn't try to say the penis word for Elaine. "Cock," I said to her. — John Irving

It's Shakespearean, Bill; lots of the important stuff in Shakespeare happens offstage - you just hear about it. — John Irving

There's a limit to enduring admiration being a substitute for love. — John Irving

What woman wants to hear someone say what her husband is thinking? What guy is going to be happy hearing what's on his wife's mind? — John Irving

For seven of the eight years he was president, Reagan would not say the AIDS word. — John Irving

He smoked so much marijuana that his hair smelled like a cupboard crammed with oregano; — John Irving

You can't learn everything you need to know legally. — John Irving

Most dump kids are believers; maybe you have to believe in something when you see so many discarded things. — John Irving

The two old secretaries conversed in the manner of hostile but toothless male dogs. — John Irving

Gender mattered a whole lot less to Shakespeare than it seems to matter to us. — John Irving

Friends were more important than lovers - not least for the fact that friendships generally lasted longer than relationships. — John Irving

I sometimes think that what I do as a writer is make a kind of colouring book, where all the lines are there, and then you put in the colour. — John Irving

Many of Juan Diego's demons had been his childhood companions-he knew them so well, they were as familiar as friends. — John Irving

Meaning Michael Milton; meaning the whole thing. — John Irving

JUST THINK OF THIS AS MY LITTLE GIFT TO YOU," says Owen Meany — John Irving

Where our desires "come from"; that is a dark, winding road. — John Irving

Like any good novel, it lulled him into an almost tranquil state of awareness before it jolted him - it caught him completely by surprise. — John Irving

Always be suspicious of easy work, Dr. Wilbur Larch once said to Homer Wells. — John Irving

Once again, Jack reached for her hand. It was the only thing he knew how to do. As it would turn out, it was about the only thing he reall knew. — John Irving

You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else. — John Irving

I shared my grandmother's distaste for the word rector - it sounded too much like rectum to be taken seriously. — John Irving

Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. — John Irving

A truly happy woman drives some men and almost every other woman absolutely crazy — John Irving

When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother's hand, his fingers could see in the dark. — John Irving

To the dump kids, it also seemed perfectly logical that they were driven to the circus by a transvestite prostitute. — John Irving

Women readers kept fiction alive - here was another one. — John Irving

The more clearly one sees this world; the more one is obliged to pretend it does not exist. — John Irving

We often need to lose sight of our priorities in order to see them. — John Irving

It won't take much of a city to be a city for me — John Irving

It is exhausting to be seventeen and not know who you are. — John Irving

(You shouldn't guess about someone's past; if you don't see any evidence of it, a person's past remains unknown to you.) — John Irving

If you can't love crudeness, how can you truly love mankind? — John Irving

But writers, Garp knew, were just observers - good and ruthless imitators of human behavior. — John Irving

It's as if you've been shot in the heart, Bill, but you're unaware of the hole or the loss of blood. I doubt you even heard the shot! — John Irving

She was convinced that women were as often victims of themselves as they were of men. — John Irving

Am I not here, for I am your mother? — John Irving

Anything I've ever read by John Irving has been really well written. — Luke Bryan

Life is an X-rated soap opera. — John Irving

A writer's job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories. — John Irving

(Baseball) is a game with a lot of waiting in it; it is a game with increasingly heightened anticipation of increasingly limited action — John Irving

I certainly think Obama is the most hopeful president I've seen in the country since John Kennedy. — John Irving

Kids are perfect people till grownups get their hands on them. — John Irving

It was from just a few sentences that a writer learned anything from another writer. — John Irving

This is what a self-centered religion does to us: it allows us to use it to further our own ends. — John Irving

It happens to many teenagers-that moment when you feel full of resentment or distrust for those adults you once loved unquestioningly. — John Irving

John Irving once told me he doesn't start a novel until he knows the last sentence. I said, 'My God, Irving, isn't that like working in a factory?' — Tom Robbins

Garp didn't want a daughter because of men. Because of bad men, certainly; but even, he thought, because of men like me. — John Irving

I'm a worst-case scenario person. I'm only interested in a story because I kind of go, like a magnet, to the worst thing that can happen. — John Irving

If you're God's instrument, Owen," I said, "how come you need my help to stuff a basketball? — John Irving

The only way you get Americans to notice anything is to tax them or draft them or kill them. — John Irving

Being afraid you'll look like a coward is the worst reason for doing anything. — John Irving

Foreshadowing is the storytelling companion of fate. — John Irving

The memoir-novel dumbed down fiction and traduced — John Irving

I'll tell you what's wrong with dumb-shit patriotism
it's delusional! It signifies nothing but the American need to win — John Irving

Both,' Garp wrote, 'were of the opinion that the practice of law was vulgar, but the study of it was sublime.' They — John Irving

Don't worry - so what if there is no life after death? There is life after Garp, believe me. — John Irving

Aren't eccentricities fairly common among overachievers. — John Irving

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil. — John Irving

Ambition robs you of your childhood. The moment you want to become an adult - in any way - something in your childhood dies. — John Irving

Jenny Fields felt undone, the way only a person who has been careful can feel when confronted by a mistake. — John Irving

The unspoken factor is love. The reason I can work so hard at my writing is that it's not work for me. — John Irving

We've been an empire in decline since I can remember," Ketchum said bluntly; he wasn't kidding. "We are a lost nation, Danny. Stop farting around. — John Irving

The main character and the most important character are not always the same person - you have to know the difference. — John Irving

If I had to be anything," he told her, "I'd probably be a socialist, but I don't want to be anything. — John Irving

Bonkie bit Garp!"
Garp bit Bonkie — John Irving

One can learn much through the thin walls of summer houses. — John Irving

Just because you're sober, don't think you're a good driver, Cookie. — John Irving

What is this fascination the world has with death? — John Irving

That's actually happened?' Ruth asked.
'Everything's happened,' the prostitute said. — John Irving

We will often do anything to pretend that nothing is on our minds. — John Irving

... there is no straightforward negotiation with a four year old ... — John Irving

Melville's Moby-Dick - — John Irving

I love John Irving's stuff. It's that marriage of comedy and tragedy. It's really terrific. — Jeff Bridges

To each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread. We were just a family. In a family even exaggerations make perfect sense. — John Irving

Sell my old clothes - I'm off to heaven — John Irving

Lupe's language is just a little different," Juan Diego was saying. "I can understand it. — John Irving

David Copperfield. — John Irving

Of course, apologies are rarely acceptable to true believers - or to anyone who believes in *pure* good, or in pure evil. — John Irving

DON'T GIVE ME THE SHIVERS,' Owen said. — John Irving

Sometimes, when we are labeled, when we are branded, our brand becomes our calling; — John Irving

Just when you begin thinking of yourself as memorable, you run into someone who can't even remember having met you — John Irving

It is your responsibility to find fault with me, it is mine to hear you out. But don't expect me to change. — John Irving

It's rare when there's something we can do for ourselves which also pleases someone else. — John Irving

I have learned that the consequences of our past actions are always interesting; I have learned to view the present with a forward-looking eye. — John Irving

THE BRITISH NEVER WATCH BASEBALL! — John Irving

That's what I love about boys," Marion told him. "No matter what, you just go about your business. — John Irving

Ad majorem Dei gloriam - to the greater glory of God. — John Irving

Safer than we are." I told Franny. "Safer than love." "let me tell ya kid," Franny said to me, squeezing my hand. "Everything's safer than love. — John Irving

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. — John Irving

LIBERACE!' Owen would have cried. 'WHO WOULD HAVE BELIEVED IT POSSIBLE? LIBERACE! KILLED BY WATERMELONS! — John Irving

Rural life in the winter months was rugged: snow-blurred and alcohol-fueled, violent and fast. — John Irving

Do not forget the past; forgive the past. — John Irving

The day women stop reading - that's the day the novel dies! — John Irving

Mr. Merrill was most appealing because he reassured us that doubt was the essence of faith, and not faith's opposite. — John Irving

Like the rooftop dogs, they were lost souls - they were running wild, or they drifted around town like ghosts. — John Irving

Many things the gods achieve beyond our judgement,'" said the sorrowful girl. "'What we thought is not confirmed and what we thought not God contives. — John Irving

What she might have told him was that taxidermy, like sex, is a very personal subject; the manner in which we impose it on others should be discreet. — John Irving