Quotes from John Irving

It was not the cold that made you want to rush out as soon as you'd jumped in; it was the unmeasured depth - our fear of what was on the bottom, and how far below us the bottom was.

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

I you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.

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

I TRUST THAT GOD WILL HELP ME, BECAUSE WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO DO LOOKS VERY HARD.

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

Buster was queer as a cat fart.

Men who believe in good and evil, and who believe that good should win, should watch for those moments when it is possible to play God

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.

So we dream on. Thus we invent our lives. We give ourselves a sainted mother, we make our father a hero; and someone's older brother and someone's older sister – they become our heroes too. We invent what we love and what we fear. There is always a brave lost brother – and a little lost sister, too. We dream on and on: the best hotel, the perfect family, the resort life. And our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them.

Newspapers are even worse for me than ice cream; headlines, and the big issues that generate the headlines, are pure fat.

It was one of those ridiculous arrangements that couples make when they are separating, but before they are divorced - when they still imagine that children and property can be shared with more magnanimity than recrimination.

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 kept reading it and reading it...

Life is an X-rated soap opera.

There comes a moment in every life when you must let go with your hands—with both hands.

but only because exhaustion is a life-sign; it is at least a form of being human.

Did the rhythm of the train on the tracks somehow unravel her and make her behave out of character? Was she altered in transit, when her feet were not upon the ground?

You can give yourself a headache trying to decipher the tattoos on a naked man who's leaping up and down on a bed.

Did anyone who was in love and was unsatisfied with how he was loved in return ever feel saved?

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.

I felt certain that if the world would stop indulging wars and famines and other perils, it would still be possible for human beings to embarrass each other to death. Our self-destruction might take a little longer that way, but I believe it would be no less complete.

It doesn't really matter who said it - it's so obviously true. Bevore you can write anything, you have to notice something.

WHAT I'M TELLING YOU IS, IF YOU WANT TO DO THINGS YOUR OWN WAY, YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE A DECISION - YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO FIND A LITTLE COURAGE.

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