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He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson

John Irving

You know, everybody dies. My parents died. Your father died. Everybody dies. I’m going to die too. So will you. The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a life
JOHN IRVING

Adventure Everybody Father Real
My brain is sending poison to my heart.
JOHN IRVING

Brain Heart Poison
I never know when I finish the novel I am writing which will be the next novel out of the station.
JOHN IRVING

Next Novel Writing
The unspoken factor is love. The reason I can work so hard at my writing is that it’s not work for me.
JOHN IRVING

Love Reason Writing
Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.
JOHN IRVING

Bears Practice Promise
…every study of the gods, of everyone’s gods, is a revelation of vengeance towards the innocent.
JOHN IRVING

Innocent Study Vengeance
How we love to love things for other people; how we love to have other people love things through our eyes.
JOHN IRVING

Eyes Love People Things
Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.
JOHN IRVING

Hatred Loneliness Self
I will tell you what is my overriding perception of the last twenty years: that we are a civilization careening toward a succession of anticlimaxes – toward an infinity of unsatisfying, and disagreeable endings.
JOHN IRVING

Civilization Perception Years
The main character and the most important character are not always the same person – you have to know the difference.
JOHN IRVING

Character Differences Important
The lie, of course, is more interesting.
JOHN IRVING

Courses Interesting Lying
I grew up in a family where, through my teenage years, I was expected to go to church on Sunday. It wasn’t terribly painful.
JOHN IRVING

Sunday Teenage Years
He also knew that rivals are best unmanned by being ignored.
JOHN IRVING

Being Ignored Rivals Unmanned
As it was, things went from bad to worse, as they often will when amateurs are involved in an activity that they perform in bad temper – or in a hurry.
JOHN IRVING

Activity Bad Temper
It is exhausting to be seventeen and not know who you are.
JOHN IRVING

Exhausting Knows Seventeen
There is no straightforward negotiation with a four year old.
JOHN IRVING

Four Negotiation Years

He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson

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He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson

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