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Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean – make sure they know what they mean!

John Irving

Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.
JOHN IRVING

Stories Victim Writing
They all settled into being the kind of friends when they heard from each other…. or when they occasionally got together. And when they were not in touch, they did not think of one another.
JOHN IRVING

Kind Thinking Together
Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.
JOHN IRVING

Hatred Loneliness Self
Rituals are comforting; rituals combat loneliness.
JOHN IRVING

Combat Comforting Loneliness
I have always believed that, in a story, if something traumatic or calamitous enough happens to a kid at a formative age, that will make him or her the adult they become.
JOHN IRVING

Adults Age Kids
Thus we try to keep our heroes alive; hence we remember them.
JOHN IRVING

Alive Hero Trying
And when you love a book, commit one glorious sentence of it-perhaps your favorite sentence-to memory. That way you won’t forget the language of the story that moved you to tears.
JOHN IRVING

Book Memories Tears
Our memory is a monster; you forget it – it does not.
JOHN IRVING

Doe Memories Monsters
…every study of the gods, of everyone’s gods, is a revelation of vengeance towards the innocent.
JOHN IRVING

Innocent Study Vengeance
It doesn’t really matter who said it – it’s so obviously true. Before you can write anything, you have to notice something.
JOHN IRVING

Matter Said Something Writing
Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.
JOHN IRVING

Bears Practice Promise
…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
In this world,” Franny once observed, “just as you’re trying to think of yourself as memorable, there is always someone who forgets that that they have met you.
JOHN IRVING

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

Phrases Thinking Today
They were involved in that awkward procedure of getting to unknow each other.
JOHN IRVING

Awkward Procedures Regret

Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean – make sure they know what they mean!

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Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean – make sure they know what they mean!

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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