Quotes from John Irving

It seemed to Dr. Daruwalla that his story was the opposite of universal; his story was simply strange - the doctor himself was singularly foreign.

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.

nearly everything seems a letdown after a writer has finished writing something.

YOUR BOREDOM IS YOUR PROBLEM, said Owen Meany. IT'S YOUR LACK OF IMAGINATION THAT BORES YOU. HARDY HAS THE WORLD FIGURED OUT. TESS IS DOOMED. FATE HAS IT IN FOR HER. SHE'S A VICTIM; IF YOU'RE A VICTIM, THE WORLD WILL USE YOU. WHY SHOULD SOMEONE WHO'S GOT SUCH A WORKED-OUT WAY OF SEEING THE WORLD BORE YOU? WHY SHOULDN'T YOU BE INTERESTED IN SOMEONE WHO'S WORKED OUT A WAY TO SEE THE WORLD? THAT'S WHAT MAKES WRITERS INTERESTING!

Did Owen say your grandmother was a banshee? He said she was 'wailing like a banshee,' I explained. Dan got out the dictionary , then; he was clucking his tongue and shaking his head, and laughing at himself saying, That boy! What a boy! Brilliant but preposterous! And that was the first time I learned, literally, what a banshee was--a banshee, in Irish folklore, is a female spirit whose wailing is a sign that a loved one will soon die.

The principal difference between an adventurer and a suicide is that the adventurer leaves himself a margin of escape (the narrower the margin, the greater the adventure).

I'm just a woman with a penis! she would say, her voice rising.

You should wait, William, Miss Frost said. The time to read Madame Bovary is when your romantic hopes and desires have crashed, and you believe that your future relationships will have disappointing - even devastating - consequences.

Of course, everyone is intolerant of something or someone.

There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep.

If you don't feel you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then what you're doing probably isn't very vital. If you don't feel that you are writing somewhat over your head, why do it? If you don't have some doubt of your authority to tell this story, then you're not trying to tell enough.

It was quality that killed Lilly; it was the end of The Great Gatsby, which was not her ending, which was not an ending within her grasp.

woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.

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.

Only the chicken-lover will understand me. He will give me a kindly look, maybe mildly desirous. His eyes will tell me: You might look a lot better with some reddish-brown feathers.

People regard art too highly, and history not enough

By '95 - in New York, alone - more Americans had died of AIDS than were killed in Vietnam.

DREAMS EDIT THEMSELVES; DREAMS are ruthless with details. Common sense does not dictate what remains, or is not included, in a dream. A two-minute dream can feel like forever.

Of course: because it was in one of the camps that he went blind. They had performed some failed experiment on his eyes in the camp. 'No, not summer camp,' Franny had to tell Lilly, who had always been afraid of being sent to summer camp, and was unsurprised to hear that they tortured the campers.

His resolve was blown as quickly as the rest of him.

Almost everyone is dying to leave home, eventually; and almost everyone needs to.

people can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.

If (a writer) has applied himself to an art for 15 or 20 years and they've gotten good at it, and they're expected to do something else to support themselves while the industry that sells this craft supports itself very well, something is badly wrong. Morally wrong.

The point was - he wasn't acting . It was as if he'd forgotten how! Jack still knew his lines, but he was out of character... Jack had stopped acting. He was just Jack Burns - the real Jack Burns at last.