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My brain is sending poison to my heart.

John Irving

When I finally write the first sentence, I want to know everything that happens, so that I am not inventing the story as I write it – rather, I am remembering a story that has already happened.
JOHN IRVING

Stories Want Writing
Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.
JOHN IRVING

Bears Practice Promise
In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases
JOHN IRVING

Cases Meany Owen World
He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson
JOHN IRVING

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

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

Anticipation Excitement Thrill
It’s a no-win argument – that business of what we’re born with and what our environment does to us. And it’s a boring argument, because it simplifies the mysteries that attend both our birth and our growth.
JOHN IRVING

Environment Growth Winning
Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.
JOHN IRVING

Hatred Loneliness Self
In increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us — not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss.
JOHN IRVING

Childhood Events Loss
Wrestling was my first success, the first thing that confirmed that I could be good at anything. Devoting yourself to wrestling, or tennis, or skiing, or dance, or to a musical instrument is a longing to be disciplined for a purpose.
JOHN IRVING

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

Dread Gardener Size
I still believe in getting married in churches and baptizing children. I go through those motions.
JOHN IRVING

Believe Children Church
I always thought that you could do worse than find yourself dying in the company of a devoted former student.
JOHN IRVING

Dying Finding Student Yourself
but writers, Garp knew, were just observers – good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.
JOHN IRVING

Behavior Humans Ruthless
O God — please give him back! I shall keep asking You.
JOHN IRVING

Asking Giving Please
You’ve got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.
JOHN IRVING

Obsessed Obsession Psychology

My brain is sending poison to my heart.

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My brain is sending poison to my heart.

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