black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

… 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

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
Keep passing the open windows.
JOHN IRVING

Depression Encouraging Life
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
…I suddenly realized what small towns are. They are places where you grow up with the peculiar-you live next door to the strange and the unlikely for so long that everything and everyone become commonplace.
JOHN IRVING

Doors Growing Long
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
It’s not right to hurt or deceive someone who’s already been hurt and deceived.
JOHN IRVING

Deceived Deceiving Hurt
but good friends are nothing to each other if they are not supportive.
JOHN IRVING

Friend Good Meany Owen Supportive
But I often think that so-called glamorous people are just very busy people.
JOHN IRVING

Busy People Thinking
The excitement of anticipation was *almost* equal to the thrill of lovemaking.
JOHN IRVING

Anticipation Excitement Thrill
I’ve always preferred writing in longhand. I’ve always written first drafts in longhand.
JOHN IRVING

Firsts Writing Written
If we live long enough, we become caricatures of ourselves.
JOHN IRVING

Caricatures Enough Long
People are either attracted to the unseemly or disapproving of it, or both; yet we try to sound superior to the unseemly by pretending to be amused by it or indifferent to it.
JOHN IRVING

People Sound Trying
The lie, of course, is more interesting.
JOHN IRVING

Courses Interesting Lying
He also knew that rivals are best unmanned by being ignored.
JOHN IRVING

Being Ignored Rivals Unmanned
Being reviewed is being condescended to by your inferiors.
JOHN IRVING

Condescend Inferiors People
He had in abundance youth’s most dangerous qualities: optimism and relentlessness. He would risk everything he had to fly the plane that could carry the bomb within him.
JOHN IRVING

Optimism Quality Risk

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More John Irving Quotes