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He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.

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 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
When writing a novel, I’m not smart enough to know how to foreshadow something if I don’t know what it is.
JOHN IRVING

Enough Smart Writing
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
You can’t say you’re going to ban something in the name of good taste, because then you have directed someone to play the role of good-taste police. We – Americans – permit bad taste in this country. In fact, we even encourage it.
JOHN IRVING

Country Names Play
The former stewardess glared at her ex-pilot husband as if he had been speaking, and thinking, in the absence of sufficient oxygen.
JOHN IRVING

Husband Oxygen Thinking
Death, it seems,” Garp wrote, “does not like to wait until we are prepared for it. Death is indulgent and enjoys, when it can, a flair for the dramatic.
JOHN IRVING

Death Dramatic Indulgent Waiting
They were involved in that awkward procedure of getting to unknow each other.
JOHN IRVING

Awkward Procedures Regret
They all settled into being the kind of friends when they heard from each other…. or when they occasionally got together. And when they were not in touch, they did not think of one another.
JOHN IRVING

Kind Thinking Together
I’m not afraid, but I’m very nervous.
JOHN IRVING

Nervous Not Afraid People
A part of adolescence is feelimg that there’s no one else around who’s enough like youself to understand you.
JOHN IRVING

Adolescence Enough Like
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
It is your responsibility to find fault with me, it is mine to hear you out. But don’t expect me to change.
JOHN IRVING

Faults Meany Owen Responsibility
I’ve always preferred writing in longhand. I’ve always written first drafts in longhand.
JOHN IRVING

Firsts Writing Written
but writers, Garp knew, were just observers – good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.
JOHN IRVING

Behavior Humans Ruthless
I’ve always been slow but I’m even slower now. I’m more into the waiting, or I guess I’m more patient about the waiting.
JOHN IRVING

Change More Patient Waiting

He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.

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He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.

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Popular Authors

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