Quotes from John Irving

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

They were running away from the war in Vietnam, or from what their country had become, Edward Bonshaw said. The Iowan reached out to them—he tried to help them—but most of the hippie boys weren't religious types. Like the rooftop dogs, they were lost souls—they were running wild, or they drifted around town like ghosts.

Things often are as they appear.

It's what all the great agents do: they make the most incredible and illogical advice sound reasonable, they make you go ahead without fear, and that way you get it, you get more or less what you want, or you get something, anyway; at least you don't end up with nothing when you go ahead without fear, when you lunge into the darkness as if you were operating on the soundest advice in the world.

the Old Girls quickly heard of Alice and her condition. (Jack, of course, was the condition.)

When you write vaguely, you are always vulnerable.

what other sort of woman would be out at that time by herself?

Leave off from wrath, and let go displeasure: fret not thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil.

What young writer is attracted to a sunny disposition?

At eleven or twelve, girls think they look awful. They have ceased being children, at least in their estimation, but they have not yet developed into the young women they will become. At that age, there are great differences among them: some have begun to look and move like young women, others have boys' bodies and move as if they were shy young men.

Frank, tell us what sex is," Franny would say, but Father would rescue us all by saying, in his dreamy voice, "I can tell you: it couldn't have happened today. You may think you have more freedom, but you also have more laws. That bear could not have happened today.

Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor—

The destruction of art by sociology and psychoanalysis," he called it.

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

Never confuse faith, or belief — of any kind — with something even remotely intellectual.

No adult in my family would ever tell me anything about who my father was. I knew from an older cousin - only four years older than I am - everything, or what little I could discover about him.

The ability to see the future can be a burden, and the younger you are and the more isolated you feel, maybe the more of a burden it is.

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