black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.

John Irving

Life forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can.
JOHN IRVING

Decision Finals Unnecessarily
I’m not a movie person. They’re collaborations of the worst kind. You must compromise yourself to many interests that are venal and crass and do not have your best interests at heart.
JOHN IRVING

Collaboration Compromise Heart
They were involved in that awkward procedure of getting to unknow each other.
JOHN IRVING

Awkward Procedures Regret
Our memory is a monster; you forget it – it does not.
JOHN IRVING

Doe Memories Monsters
Nearly everything seems a letdown after a writer has finished writing something.
JOHN IRVING

Scary Writing
There’s nothing as scary as the future.
JOHN IRVING

Future Nothing Scary
A sentence boiled in her, but she could not yet see it clearly.
JOHN IRVING

Boiled Life Sentences
Children are most impressed with the importance of a moment when they witness a parent breaking the parents’ own rule.
JOHN IRVING

Children Moments Parent
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
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.
JOHN IRVING

Agendas Blind Presidential
Rituals are comforting; rituals combat loneliness.
JOHN IRVING

Combat Comforting Loneliness
I am compulsive about writing, I need to do it the way I need sleep and exercise and food and sex; I can go without it for a while, but then I need it.
JOHN IRVING

Exercise Sex Sleep Writing
If pride is a sin … moral pride is the greatest sin.
JOHN IRVING

Moral Pride Sin
I have always believed that, in a story, if something traumatic or calamitous enough happens to a kid at a formative age, that will make him or her the adult they become.
JOHN IRVING

Adults Age Kids
When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother’s hand, his fingers could see in the dark.
JOHN IRVING

Dark Mom Mother
I always thought that you could do worse than find yourself dying in the company of a devoted former student.
JOHN IRVING

Dying Finding Student Yourself

Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More John Irving Quotes