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

John Irving

In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases
JOHN IRVING

Cases Meany Owen World
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
You’ve got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.
JOHN IRVING

Obsessed Obsession Psychology
A novel is a piece of architecture. It’s not random wallowings or confessional diaries. It’s a building-it has to have walls and floors and the bathrooms have to work.
JOHN IRVING

Diaries Floor Wall Writing
Religious freedom should work two ways: we should be free to practice the religion of our choice, but we must also be free from having someone else’s religion practiced on us.
JOHN IRVING

Practice Religious Two
There’s no reason you shouldn’t, as a writer, not be aware of the necessity to revise yourself constantly.
JOHN IRVING

Aware Constantly Reason
Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.
JOHN IRVING

Bears Practice Promise
I don’t begin a novel until I have written, not just the last sentence, but usually, as a result thereof, many of the surrounding final paragraphs, so that in addition to knowing what happens, I know what the voice is.
JOHN IRVING

Finals Knowing Usually Voice
People only ask questions when they’re ready to hear the answers.
JOHN IRVING

Answers People Ready
I have a friend who says that reviewers are the tickbirds of the literary rhinoceros-but he is being kind. Tickbirds perform a valuable service to the rhino and the rhino hardly notices the birds.
JOHN IRVING

Be Kind Bird Rhinos
All I say is: Let us leave les folles alone; let’s just leave them be. Don’t judge them. You are not superior to them – don’t put them down.
JOHN IRVING

Judging Superiors Tolerance
The gardener had a dread of small women; he’d always imagined them to have an anger disproportionate to their size.
JOHN IRVING

Dread Gardener Size
No one could have fathomed what a life he’d led, for it was chiefly a life lived in his mind.
JOHN IRVING

Chiefly Lived Mind Mine
…every study of the gods, of everyone’s gods, is a revelation of vengeance towards the innocent.
JOHN IRVING

Innocent Study Vengeance
My life is a reading list.
JOHN IRVING

Life Lists Reading
My brain is sending poison to my heart.
JOHN IRVING

Brain Heart Poison

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

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

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