Quotes from John Irving

If you're lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.

bees are a model society, a lesson in teamwork!

But Americans are not great historians, and so, for years—educated by my neighbor—I thought that sagamore was an Indian word for lake.

He had just one vowel and one consonant left.

I read that part over and over again, until I felt I had the pronunciation right. There was quite a good pencil drawing of a phoenix, that mythical bird that was supposed

Of all the things you choose in life, you don't get to choose what your nightmares are. You don't pick them; they pick you.

Just give me the antibiotic," Esperanza said. "Of course I'll be infected again! I'm a prostitute.

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.

to burn itself on a funeral pyre and then rise up from its own ashes. Under the drawing, Owen had written: "OFTEN A SYMBOL OF REBORN IDEALISM, OR HOPE—OR AN EMBLEM OF IMMORTALITY." And

Vienna, Garp thought, was a cadaver; all Europe, maybe, was a dressed-up corpse in an open coffin.

every study of the gods, of everyone's gods, is a revelation of vengeance toward the innocent.

The temptation to touch each other, even to bash their shopping carts together, was removed from them, and they all settled into being the kind of friends many old friends become: that is, they were friends when they heard from each other – or when, occasionally, they got together. And when they were not in touch, they did not think of one another.

At times I envy Lewis Merrill; I wish someone could trick me the way I tricked him into having such absolute and unshakable faith. For although I believe I know what the real miracles are, my belief in God disturbs and unsettles me much more than not believing ever did; unbelief seems vastly harder to me now than belief does—but belief poses so many unanswerable questions!

In this dirty-minded world," Jenny wrote, "you are either somebody's wife or somebody's whore—or fast on your way to becoming one or the other.

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

The classes they taught were for no student's special development; their interests were the subject themselves—their passions were for the politics of the university, or of their own departments within it—and their overall view of us students was that we should conform ourselves to their methods of their disciplines of study.

How could Owen Meany have known what he "knew"? It's no answer, of course, to believe in accidents, or in coincidences; but is God really a better answer? If God had a hand in what Owen "knew," what a horrible question that poses! For how could God have let that happen to Owen Meany? Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean—make sure they know what they mean!

Your first loss of a loved one, the first death of someone dear to you—when it happens, the pace of everything changes. In the past, there were times when nothing seemed to be happening. When you lose someone, you're aware of the earth's motion; the world is always moving, always ahead of you. For the rest of your life, you know there are other deaths coming—one after another, yours included.

Bromley Mountain. It was close to

Whereas she wished more of the population were better educated, she also believed that education was largely wasted on the majority of people she had met.

We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly–as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth–the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives.

Loving long novels plays havoc with going to school

May you be spared such a moment of recognition as this—namely, the conviction that most of your happiness lies behind you, and the lion's share of your loneliness looms ahead.

Homer Wells cried because he'd never known how nice a father's kisses could be, and he cried because he doubted that Wilbur Larch would ever do it again-or would have done it, if he'd thought Homer was awake.