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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

The gardener had a dread of small women; he’d always imagined them to have an anger disproportionate to their size.
JOHN IRVING

Dread Gardener Size
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
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
A novel is a piece of architecture. It’s not random wallowings or confessional diaries. It’s a building-it has to have walls and floors and the bathrooms have to work.
JOHN IRVING

Diaries Floor Wall Writing
What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman’s freedom of choice, too.
JOHN IRVING

Abortion Choice Choices Freedom
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
When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother’s hand, his fingers could see in the dark.
JOHN IRVING

Dark Mom Mother
No one could have fathomed what a life he’d led, for it was chiefly a life lived in his mind.
JOHN IRVING

Chiefly Lived Mind Mine
I’ve always preferred writing in longhand. I’ve always written first drafts in longhand.
JOHN IRVING

Firsts Writing Written
If we live long enough, we become caricatures of ourselves.
JOHN IRVING

Caricatures Enough Long
Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.
JOHN IRVING

Bears Practice Promise
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
Keep passing the open windows.
JOHN IRVING

Depression Encouraging Life
I grew up in a family where, through my teenage years, I was expected to go to church on Sunday. It wasn’t terribly painful.
JOHN IRVING

Sunday Teenage Years
It’s not right to hurt or deceive someone who’s already been hurt and deceived.
JOHN IRVING

Deceived Deceiving Hurt
He had in abundance youth’s most dangerous qualities: optimism and relentlessness. He would risk everything he had to fly the plane that could carry the bomb within him.
JOHN IRVING

Optimism Quality Risk

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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