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I’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 Irving

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
If you feel strongly about people having abortions, don’t have one. But we are a country – USA – that likes to be punitive. We want to restrict. It is a kind of religious fervor run amuck.
JOHN IRVING

Country Religious Running
I have pretty thick skin, and I think if you’re going to be in this business, if you’re going to be an actor or a writer, you better have a thick skin.
JOHN IRVING

Actor Skins Thinking
Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.
JOHN IRVING

Hatred Loneliness Self
A writer’s job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories.
JOHN IRVING

Jobs Memories Writing
You can’t learn everything you need to know legally.
JOHN IRVING

Feet Knows Needs
No 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.
JOHN IRVING

Cousin Father Years
In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases
JOHN IRVING

Cases Meany Owen World
We permit bad taste in this country. In fact, we even encourage it – and reward it in all manner of ways.
JOHN IRVING

Country Rewards Way
I don’t begin a novel until I have written, not just the last sentence, but usually, as a result thereof, many of the surrounding final paragraphs, so that in addition to knowing what happens, I know what the voice is.
JOHN IRVING

Finals Knowing Usually Voice
Whereas 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 IRVING

Majority People Population
This is what self-centered religion does to us: it allows us to use it to further our own ends.
JOHN IRVING

Centered Religion Self
You’ve got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.
JOHN IRVING

Obsessed Obsession Psychology
The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn’t behave that way you would never do anything.
JOHN IRVING

Minutes Way Writing
THERE’S NO MONKEY BUSINESS ABOUT THIS ELECTION,’ he told the voters. ‘IF YOU’RE ENOUGH OF AN ASSHOLE TO VOTE FOR NIXON, YOUR DUMB VOTE WILL BE COUNTED––JUST LIKE ANYBODY ELSE!
JOHN IRVING

Dumb Monkeys Voters
You’re nice,’ Cushie told him, squeezing his hand. ‘And you’re my oldest friend.’ But they both must have known that you can know someone all your life and never quite be friends.
JOHN IRVING

Hands Nice Squeezing

I’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.

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I’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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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