Quotes from John Irving

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!

But this is what we do: we dream on, and our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them. That's what happens, like it or not. And because that is what happens, this is what we need: we need a good, smart bear.

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.

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.

She was a passionate reader, and she thought that reading was one of the noblest efforts of all; in contrast, she found writing to be a great waste of time—a childish self-indulgence, even messier than finger painting—but she admired reading, which she believed was an unselfish activity that provided information and inspiration. She must have thought it a pity that some poor fools had to waste their lives writing in order for us to have sufficient reading material. (page 236)

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?

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?

Homer and Candy passed by the empty and brightly lit dispensary; they peeked into Nurse Angela's empty office. Homer knew better than to peek into the delivery room when the light was on. From the dormitory, they could hear Dr. Larch's reading voice. Although Candy held tightly to his hand, Homer was inclined to hurry – in order not to miss the bedtime story.

Faith itself is a miracle

Remember, Duncan asked on the plane, how Walt asked if it was green or brown? Both Garp and Duncan laughed. But it was neither green nor brown, Garp thought. It was me. It was Helen. It was the color of bad weather. It was the size of an automobile.

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

The student and the teacher had contrasting ideas about the sentence, which was: "There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

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;

It often happens with grown-ups that their tears are misunderstood. (Who can know which time in their lives they are reliving?)

That was when I first began to think about certain events or specific things being important and having special purpose. Until then, the notion that anything had a designated, much less a special purpose would have been cuckoo to me. I was not what was commonly called a believer then, and I am a believer now; I believe in God, and I believe in the special purpose of certain events or specific things.

It's natural to want someone you love to do what you want, or what you think would be good for them, but you have to let everything happen to them. You can't interfere with people you love any more than you're supposed to interfere with people you don't even know. And that's hard. Because you often feel like interfering—you want to be the one who makes the plans. . . You can't protect people, kiddo, all you can do is love them.

Sometimes it is the only worthwhile product you can salvage from a day: what you make to eat. With writing, I find, you can have all the right ingredients, give plenty of time and care, and still get nothing. Also true of love.

Lemties ne?manoma ?žvelgti, nebent jei sapnuoji ar esi apsvaig?s iš meil?s.

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.

Readers vary, when it comes to having the imagination to enjoy a story outside their own experiences.

What did you do that for?" the customs guy asked him. "We haven't been getting along lately," Jack admitted. "Well, this'll really help," the guy said.

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!

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.

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.