Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean – make sure they know what they mean!
JOHN IRVINGLife is serious but art is fun!
More John Irving Quotes
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but writers, Garp knew, were just observers – good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.
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O God — please give him back! I shall keep asking You.
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Everybody dies … The thing is, to have a life before we die.
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Being reviewed is being condescended to by your inferiors.
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There is no straightforward negotiation with a four year old.
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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.
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Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.
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The ability to see the future can be a burden, and the younger you are and the more isolated you feel, maybe the more of a burden it is.
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I’ve always preferred writing in longhand. I’ve always written first drafts in longhand.
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Thus we try to keep our heroes alive; hence we remember them.
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Don’t forget this, too: Rumors aren’t interested in the unsensational story; rumors don’t care what’s true.
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In an episodic treatment, such as a teleplay is, you have the ability to do what you can do in a novel, which is flash back and flash forward in the same instant, in the same scene, in the same voice.
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You cannot drive with your eyes in the rear-view mirror… But dignity is difficult to maintain. Stamina requires constant upkeep. Repetition is boring. And you pay for grace.
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I write very quickly; I rewrite very slowly. It takes me nearly as long to rewrite a book as it does to get the first draft.
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Be serious. Life hurts. Reflect what hurts. I don’t mean that you can’t also be funny, or have fun, but at the end of the day, stories are about what you lose.
JOHN IRVING