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…every study of the gods, of everyone’s gods, is a revelation of vengeance towards the innocent.

John Irving

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
What a phrase that is: ‘that explains everything!’ I know better than to think anything ‘explains everything’ today.
JOHN IRVING

Phrases Thinking Today
Kids are beautiful, man. And they know much more than grownups think they know. Kids are just perfect people until grownups get their hands on them.
JOHN IRVING

Beautiful Kids Men
You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else.
JOHN IRVING

Beginning Ends Grows Growth
We permit bad taste in this country. In fact, we even encourage it – and reward it in all manner of ways.
JOHN IRVING

Country Rewards Way
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
Life is an X-rated soap opera.
JOHN IRVING

Life Opera Soap
No adult in my family would ever tell me anything about who my father was. I knew from an older cousin – only four years older than I am – everything, or what little I could discover about him.
JOHN IRVING

Cousin Father Years
… and so he tried to accept the ache in his heart as what Dr. Larch would call the common symptoms of normal life.
JOHN IRVING

Heart Normal Symtons
The lie, of course, is more interesting.
JOHN IRVING

Courses Interesting Lying
It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.
JOHN IRVING

Art Hard Work Serious
People only ask questions when they’re ready to hear the answers.
JOHN IRVING

Answers People Ready
If you presume to love something, you must love the process of it much more than you love the finished product.
JOHN IRVING

Finished Process Product
It’s not right to hurt or deceive someone who’s already been hurt and deceived.
JOHN IRVING

Deceived Deceiving Hurt
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
There is no straightforward negotiation with a four year old.
JOHN IRVING

Four Negotiation Years

…every study of the gods, of everyone’s gods, is a revelation of vengeance towards the innocent.

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…every study of the gods, of everyone’s gods, is a revelation of vengeance towards the innocent.

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