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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

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

Anticipation Excitement Thrill
I always thought that you could do worse than find yourself dying in the company of a devoted former student.
JOHN IRVING

Dying Finding Student Yourself
There are always suicides among people who are unable to say what they mean.
JOHN IRVING

Mean People Suicide
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
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
It’s a no-win argument – that business of what we’re born with and what our environment does to us. And it’s a boring argument, because it simplifies the mysteries that attend both our birth and our growth.
JOHN IRVING

Environment Growth Winning
Be serious. Life hurts. Reflect what hurts. I don’t mean that you can’t also be funny, or have fun, but at the end of the day, stories are about what you lose.
JOHN IRVING

Fun Hurt Mean Stories
The main character and the most important character are not always the same person – you have to know the difference.
JOHN IRVING

Character Differences Important
Rituals are comforting; rituals combat loneliness.
JOHN IRVING

Combat Comforting Loneliness
Being reviewed is being condescended to by your inferiors.
JOHN IRVING

Condescend Inferiors People
A writer’s job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories.
JOHN IRVING

Jobs Memories Writing
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
I suppose I’m proudest of my novels for what’s imagined in them. I think the world of my imagination is a richer and more interesting place than my personal biography.
JOHN IRVING

Imagination Interesting Thinking
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
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
Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.
JOHN IRVING

Hatred Loneliness Self

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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