black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

John Irving

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
If you feel strongly about people having abortions, don’t have one. But we are a country – USA – that likes to be punitive. We want to restrict. It is a kind of religious fervor run amuck.
JOHN IRVING

Country Religious Running
I certainly think Obama is the most hopeful president I’ve seen in the country since John Kennedy.
JOHN IRVING

Country Hopeful Thinking
YOU LET ME DROWN!” Owen said. “YOU DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! YOU JUST WATCHED ME DROWN! I’M ALREADY DEAD!” he told us. “REMEMBER THAT: YOU LET ME DIE.
JOHN IRVING

Anything Dead Remember Watched
I’ve always preferred writing in longhand. I’ve always written first drafts in longhand.
JOHN IRVING

Firsts Writing Written
What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.
JOHN IRVING

Love People Wind
If pride is a sin … moral pride is the greatest sin.
JOHN IRVING

Moral Pride Sin
Thus we try to keep our heroes alive; hence we remember them.
JOHN IRVING

Alive Hero Trying
If we live long enough, we become caricatures of ourselves.
JOHN IRVING

Caricatures Enough Long
There are always suicides among people who are unable to say what they mean.
JOHN IRVING

Mean People Suicide
My brain is sending poison to my heart.
JOHN IRVING

Brain Heart Poison
And when you love a book, commit one glorious sentence of it-perhaps your favorite sentence-to memory. That way you won’t forget the language of the story that moved you to tears.
JOHN IRVING

Book Memories Tears
Life is an X-rated soap opera.
JOHN IRVING

Life Opera Soap
If you asked me one day, I might say, “Well, sometimes I feel a little bit religious.” If you asked me another day, I’d just say flat out, “No.”
JOHN IRVING

Another Day Religious
THERE’S NO MONKEY BUSINESS ABOUT THIS ELECTION,’ he told the voters. ‘IF YOU’RE ENOUGH OF AN ASSHOLE TO VOTE FOR NIXON, YOUR DUMB VOTE WILL BE COUNTED––JUST LIKE ANYBODY ELSE!
JOHN IRVING

Dumb Monkeys Voters
My life is a reading list.
JOHN IRVING

Life Lists Reading

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More John Irving Quotes