Quotes About Fate

In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases. John Irving's The World According to Garp

Ogni volta che lanci una lumaca dalla darsena, Ray disse a Homer Wells per canzonarlo, costringi qualcuno a ricominciare la vita daccapo. Magari gli faccio un favore, disse Homer Wells, l'orfano.

He wanted to leave, but now it was his fate that held him. Sometimes, when we are labeled, when we are branded, our brand becomes our calling: Wilbur Larch felt himself called.

foreshadowing is the storytelling companion of fate.

What bothered Ruth was that she needed to be with Rooie again -- just to see, as in a story, what would happen next. That meant Rooie was in charge.

The only question that I wanted to ask the darkness was the one question Scrooge had also wanted an answer to: "'Are these the shadows of the things that Will be or are they shadows of the things that May be, only?'" But the Ghost of the Future was not answering.

There are many unintentionally cruel talents that the world, indiscriminately, hands out to us. Whether we can use these gifts we never asked for is not the worlds concern.

Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,/And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan.... /These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown/Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.' I know you know what that means: you believe in God but I believe in 'Crass Casualty'—in chance, in luck. That's what I mean. You see? What good does it do to make whatever decision you're talking about? What good does courage do—when what happens next is up for grabs?

We did not realize that there were forces beyond our play. Now I know they were the forces that contributed to our illusion of Owen's weightlessness; they were the forces we didn't have the faith to feel, they were the forces we failed to believe in—and they were also lifting up Owen Meany, taking him out of our hands. O God—please give him back! I shall keep asking You.

In the World according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.

What makes the first sentence of A Prayer for Owen Meany such a good one is that the whole novel is contained in it.

A Prayer for Owen Meany

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.

when you scare off the Angel of Death, the Divine Plan calls for the kind of angels you can't scare away;

As could be seen by the fate of the man who could only walk on his hands, Garp had a thing about escalators.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once

the first chair headed down the mountain would be Molly's last chairlift. Willy

Here is what Owen Meany (and the armadillo) said: "GOD HAS TAKEN YOUR MOTHER. MY HANDS WERE THE INSTRUMENT. GOD HAS TAKEN MY HANDS. I AM GOD'S INSTRUMENT

It made him furious when I suggested that anything was an "accident"—especially anything that had happened to him; on the subject of predestination, Owen Meany would accuse Calvin of bad faith. There were no accidents; there was a reason for that baseball—just as there was a reason for Owen being small, and a reason for his voice.

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!

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.

If I am destined to be happy with you here -- how short is the longest Life.