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Just when you begin thinking of yourself as memorable, you run into someone who can’t even remember having met you

John Irving

O God — please give him back! I shall keep asking You.
JOHN IRVING

Asking Giving Please
People only ask questions when they’re ready to hear the answers.
JOHN IRVING

Answers People Ready
Keep passing the open windows.
JOHN IRVING

Depression Encouraging Life
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
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
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
Everybody dies … The thing is, to have a life before we die.
JOHN IRVING

Die Dies Everybody
Rituals are comforting; rituals combat loneliness.
JOHN IRVING

Combat Comforting Loneliness
You can’t say you’re going to ban something in the name of good taste, because then you have directed someone to play the role of good-taste police. We – Americans – permit bad taste in this country. In fact, we even encourage it.
JOHN IRVING

Country Names Play
The lie, of course, is more interesting.
JOHN IRVING

Courses Interesting Lying
Plot is a map and I begin with it. It is what made me admire the novels of the 19th century; that the stories are foreshadowed. TheyÕre going someplace.
JOHN IRVING

Creative Maps 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
People are either attracted to the unseemly or disapproving of it, or both; yet we try to sound superior to the unseemly by pretending to be amused by it or indifferent to it.
JOHN IRVING

People Sound Trying
Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.
JOHN IRVING

Hatred Loneliness Self
Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean – make sure they know what they mean!
JOHN IRVING

Mean People Religious
My brain is sending poison to my heart.
JOHN IRVING

Brain Heart Poison
The excitement of anticipation was *almost* equal to the thrill of lovemaking.
JOHN IRVING

Anticipation Excitement Thrill
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.
JOHN IRVING

Beautiful Kids Men
What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman’s freedom of choice, too.
JOHN IRVING

Abortion Choice Choices Freedom
Maybe 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 IRVING

Cancer Reading Real
You don’t want to be ungenerous toward people who give you prizes, but it is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel. I begin with an interest in a relationship, a situation, a character.
JOHN IRVING

Character Giving People
I’ve always preferred writing in longhand. I’ve always written first drafts in longhand.
JOHN IRVING

Firsts Writing Written
If pride is a sin … moral pride is the greatest sin.
JOHN IRVING

Moral Pride Sin
Don’t forget this, too: Rumors aren’t interested in the unsensational story; rumors don’t care what’s true.
JOHN IRVING

Care Rumor Stories
You can’t learn everything you need to know legally.
JOHN IRVING

Feet Knows Needs
It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.
JOHN IRVING

Art Hard Work Serious
But I often think that so-called glamorous people are just very busy people.
JOHN IRVING

Busy People Thinking

Just when you begin thinking of yourself as memorable, you run into someone who can’t even remember having met you

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Just when you begin thinking of yourself as memorable, you run into someone who can’t even remember having met you

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