I still believe in getting married in churches and baptizing children. I go through those motions.
JOHN IRVINGNo adult in my family would ever tell me anything about who my father was. I knew from an older cousin – only four years older than I am – everything, or what little I could discover about him.
More John Irving Quotes
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The main character and the most important character are not always the same person – you have to know the difference.
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So, I don’t work in terms of real time. I don’t work in a timely fashion.
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Kids are beautiful, man. And they know much more than grownups think they know. Kids are just perfect people until grownups get their hands on them.
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Religious freedom should work two ways: we should be free to practice the religion of our choice, but we must also be free from having someone else’s religion practiced on us.
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People only ask questions when they’re ready to hear the answers.
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It’s not right to hurt or deceive someone who’s already been hurt and deceived.
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How we love to love things for other people; how we love to have other people love things through our eyes.
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He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.
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It doesn’t really matter who said it – it’s so obviously true. Before you can write anything, you have to notice something.
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Life is serious but art is fun!
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Being reviewed is being condescended to by your inferiors.
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When you legislate personal belief, you’re in violation of freedom of religion.
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What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman’s freedom of choice, too.
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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.
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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