The more clearly one sees this world; the more one is obliged to pretend it does not exist. John Irving More Quotes by John Irving More Quotes From John Irving It's because even a good man can't always be right, that we need ... rules. John Irving good-man men needs Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties. John Irving victim stories writing 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 writing way Ever since the Christmas of 1953, I have felt that the yuletide is a special hell for those families who have suffered any loss or who must admit to any imperfection; the so-called spirit of giving can be as greedy as receiving-Christmas is our time to be aware of what we lack, of who's not home. John Irving christmas loss home Life is serious but art is fun! John Irving fun life art 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 writing The history of a city was like the history of a family—there is closeness and even affection, but death eventually separates everyone from each other. It is only the vividness of memory that keeps the dead alive forever; a writer’s job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as our personal memories. John Irving cities jobs memories Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean - make sure they know what they mean! John Irving religious mean people Goodnight you princes of Maine, you kings of New England. John Irving cider maine kings The building of the architecture of a novel - the craft of it - is something I never tire of. John Irving crafts architecture writing This is a writer’s lesson: To learn that the sounds that we imagine can be the clearest, loudest sounds of all. John Irving imagine lessons sound He also knew that rivals are best unmanned by being ignored. John Irving being-ignored rivals ignored All the unimaginative assholes in the world who imagine that Shakespeare couldn't have written Shakespeare because it was impossible from what we know about Shakespeare of Stratford that such a man would have had the experience to imagine such things - well, this denies the very thing that separates Shakespeare from almost every other writer in the world: an imagination that is untouchable and nonstop. John Irving imagination men world I will tell you what is my overriding perception of the last twenty years: that we are a civilization careening toward a succession of anticlimaxes – toward an infinity of unsatisfying, and disagreeable endings. John Irving perception civilization years I'm not typing. I write only by longhand. I've always written first drafts by hand and then once I was into a second or third draft I wrote insert pages on a typewriter. But I got rid of all my typewriters about three or four novels ago and now I do everything by hand. I write by hand because it makes me go slow and going slow is what I like. John Irving typewriters writing hands You can't learn everything you need to know legally. John Irving feet knows needs There's nothing as scary as the future. John Irving scary 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 sound trying people I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand. John Irving written writing firsts I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice. Not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God. I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. John Irving christian mother believe
