John Irving Quotes - Page 12

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• 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

  Father, Grandmother, Energy

  John Irving (1978). “The world according to Garp”, Pocket

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• It seems to me that people who don’t learn as easily as others suffer from a kind of learning disability—there is something different about the way they comprehend unfamiliar material—but I fail to see how this disability is improved by psychiatric consultation. What seems to be lacking is a technical ability that those of us called ‘good students’ are born with. Someone should concretely study these skills and teach them. What does a shrink have to do with the process?

  John Irving

  Skills, People, Suffering

  7 Copy quote

• When I finally write the first sentence, I want to know everything that happens, so that I am not inventing the story as I write it - rather, I am remembering a story that has already happened.

  John Irving

  Writing, Stories, Want

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• He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson

  John Irving

  Lessons, Moral Lessons, Moral

  John Irving (1978). “The world according to Garp”, Pocket

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• In an episodic treatment, such as a teleplay is, you have the ability to do what you can do in a novel, which is flash back and flash forward in the same instant, in the same scene, in the same voice.

  John Irving

  Voice, Scene, Treatment

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• When writing a novel, I'm not smart enough to know how to foreshadow something if I don't know what it is.

  John Irving

  Smart, Writing, Enough

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I always thought that you could do worse than find yourself dying in the company of a devoted former student.

  John Irving

  Finding Yourself, Dying, Students

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• For most of my life, when I've finished the book I'm writing, there've always been as many as two or three other novels waiting to be written next. And the decision driving which one of them it should be was never based on how long it had waited or how many accumulated pages of notes I had.

  John Irving

  Book, Writing, Two

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• It is much easier to be flexible about where a story begins than it ever was for me to change my mind about where and how a story ended.

  John Irving

  Mind, Stories, Easier

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I have a process that I seem to always, to some degree, as a writer, adhere to, but I certainly have never imposed the way I write a novel on my students. When I had students, I never said, "You should never start writing a novel until you have the last sentence." I never did that, and I wouldn't do it now, but people now seem so interested in the process [of writing fiction] that I have to constantly make it clear when I describe mine that I'm not being prescriptive. I'm not proselytizing.

  John Irving

  Writing, People, Degrees

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• The ability to see the future can be a burden, and the younger you are and the more isolated you feel, maybe the more of a burden it is.

  John Irving

  Burden, Ability, Feels

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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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

  Waiting, Patient

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it.

  John Irving

  Believe, Complicated, Should

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May 1997.

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• 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

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May/June 1997.

  4 Copy quote

• I'm a very old-fashioned novelist. I write 19th-century novels, where a lot of rules apply.

  John Irving

  Writing, Novelists, Century

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May 1997.

  4 Copy quote

• Before I began The Cider House Rules, I thought I wanted to write about a father-son relationship that was closer, more conflicted, and ultimately more loving, than most. Then I began to think of a relationship between an old orphanage director and an unadoptable orphan - a kid who goes out into the world and fails and keeps coming back, so that the old guy ends up with someone he's got to keep.

  John Irving

  Father, Kids, Writing

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May/June 1997.

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• I still believe in getting married in churches and baptizing children. I go through those motions.

  John Irving

  Children, Believe, Church

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May 1997.

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• If you feel so strongly about what's on television, don't have one.

  John Irving

  Television, Feels, Ifs

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May 1997.

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• What was even more germane was my study of the history of religion. It was one of the few things in school I was fascinated by.

  John Irving

  School, Study, Fascinated

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May/June 1997.

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• I was brought up in a community, in a family that valued such things as good manners, and I still do.

  John Irving

  Community, Good Man, Manners

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May/June 1997.

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• Ted Seabrooke, my wrestling coach, had a kind of Nietzschean effect on me in terms of not just his estimation of my limited abilities, but his decidedly philosophical stance about how to conduct your life, what you should do to compensate for your limitations. This was essential to me, both as a student - and not a good one - and as a wrestler who was not a natural athlete but who had found something he loved.

  John Irving

  Philosophical, Wrestling, Athlete

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May 1997.

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• It seems to me that a great deal of this type of censorship has to do with absolving parents of responsibility - parents who just plop their kids in front of the television and leave them there hour upon hour.

  John Irving

  Kids, Responsibility, Parent

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May 1997.

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• If you asked me one day, I might say, "Well, sometimes I feel a little bit religious." If you asked me another day, I'd just say flat out, "No."

  John Irving

  Religious, One Day, Another Day

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May/June 1997.

  4 Copy quote

• If you feel strongly about people having abortions, don't have one.

  John Irving

  People, Abortion, Feels

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May 1997.

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• 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

  Teenage, Sunday, Years

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May 1997.

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