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It is exhausting to be seventeen and not know who you are.

John Irving

I have no respect for the right-to-life position, though I have every respect for an individual who says, “I could never have that procedure, I could never see a film or read a book about that procedure.” It doesn’t bother me if people feel that way.
JOHN IRVING

Book People Procedure Way
He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.
JOHN IRVING

Coincidence Novel Young
I am compulsive about writing, I need to do it the way I need sleep and exercise and food and sex; I can go without it for a while, but then I need it.
JOHN IRVING

Exercise Sex Sleep Writing
If you presume to love something, you must love the process of it much more than you love the finished product.
JOHN IRVING

Finished Process Product
There is no straightforward negotiation with a four year old.
JOHN IRVING

Four Negotiation Years
In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases
JOHN IRVING

Cases Meany Owen World
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.
JOHN IRVING

Scene Treatment Voice
Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.
JOHN IRVING

Hatred Loneliness Self
You know, everybody dies. My parents died. Your father died. Everybody dies. I’m going to die too. So will you. The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a life
JOHN IRVING

Adventure Everybody Father Real
My life is a reading list.
JOHN IRVING

Life Lists Reading
The lie, of course, is more interesting.
JOHN IRVING

Courses Interesting Lying
What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman’s freedom of choice, too.
JOHN IRVING

Abortion Choice Choices Freedom
I’m not afraid, but I’m very nervous.
JOHN IRVING

Nervous Not Afraid People
When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother’s hand, his fingers could see in the dark.
JOHN IRVING

Dark Mom Mother
In the world according to her father, Jenny Garp knew, we must have energy. Her famous grandmother, Jenny Fields, once thought of us as Externals, Vital Organs, Absentees, and Goners. But in the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.
JOHN IRVING

Energy Father Grandmother
But I often think that so-called glamorous people are just very busy people.
JOHN IRVING

Busy People Thinking

It is exhausting to be seventeen and not know who you are.

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It is exhausting to be seventeen and not know who you are.

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