If we live long enough, we become caricatures of ourselves.
JOHN IRVINGIf we live long enough, we become caricatures of ourselves.
JOHN IRVINGYou 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.
JOHN IRVING…there was no more safety to be found in love than there was to be found in a virus.
JOHN IRVINGIt is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.
JOHN IRVINGThey were involved in that awkward procedure of getting to unknow each other.
JOHN IRVINGThe unspoken factor is love. The reason I can work so hard at my writing is that it’s not work for me.
JOHN IRVINGI’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 IRVINGI think now that is the nature of hymns-they make us want to repeat them…they are a part of any service, and often the only part of a funeral service, that makes us feel everything is acceptable.
JOHN IRVINGChildren are most impressed with the importance of a moment when they witness a parent breaking the parents’ own rule.
JOHN IRVINGMaybe television causes cancer, Garp thinks; but his real irritation is a writer’s irritation: he knows that wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn’t reading.
JOHN IRVINGIt is exhausting to be seventeen and not know who you are.
JOHN IRVINGWe permit bad taste in this country. In fact, we even encourage it – and reward it in all manner of ways.
JOHN IRVINGThe excitement of anticipation was *almost* equal to the thrill of lovemaking.
JOHN IRVINGWhereas she wished more of the population were better educated, she also believed that education was largely wasted on the majority of the people she met.
JOHN IRVINGI 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.
JOHN IRVINGLife forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can.
JOHN IRVING