You can learn a lot from your lovers, but-for the most part-you get to keep your friends longer, and you learn more from them. John Irving More Quotes by John Irving More Quotes From John Irving Everybody dies … The thing is, to have a life before we die. John Irving dies You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed. John Irving psychology obsessed obsession The unspoken factor is love. The reason I can work so hard at my writing is that it's not work for me. John Irving reason writing love With every book, you go back to school. You become a student. You become an investigative reporter. You spend a little time learning what it's like to live in someone else's shoes. John Irving shoes book school It is your responsibility to find fault with me, it is mine to hear you out. But don't expect me to change. John Irving owen-meany faults responsibility How we love to love things for other people; how we love to have other people love things through our eyes. John Irving eye love people I feel more a part of the wrestling community than I feel I belong to the community of arts and letters. Why? Because wrestling requires even more dedication than writing because wrestling represents the most difficult and rewarding objective that I have ever dedicated myself to; because wrestling and wrestling coaches are among the most disciplined and self-sacrificing people I have ever known. John Irving writing wrestling art but good friends are nothing to each other if they are not supportive. John Irving owen-meany good-friend supportive Homer and Candy passed by the empty and brightly lit dispensary; they peeked into Nurse Angela's empty office. Homer knew better than to peek into the delivery room when the light was on. From the dormitory, they could hear Dr. Larch's reading voice. Although Candy held tightly to his hand, Homer was inclined to hurry - in order not to miss the bedtime story. John Irving light reading hands I have a friend who says that reviewers are the tickbirds of the literary rhinoceros-but he is being kind. Tickbirds perform a valuable service to the rhino and the rhino hardly notices the birds. John Irving rhinos be-kind bird We will often do anything to pretend that nothing is on our minds. John Irving mind He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences. John Irving novel coincidence young You're nice,' Cushie told him, squeezing his hand. 'And you're my oldest friend.' But they both must have known that you can know someone all your life and never quite be friends. John Irving squeezing nice hands In this world,” Franny once observed, “just as you’re trying to think of yourself as memorable, there is always someone who forgets that that they have met you. John Irving memorable trying thinking The arrangements that couples make in order to maintain civility in the midst of their journey to divorce are often most elaborate when the professed top priority is to protect a child. John Irving divorce couple children There are always suicides among people who are unable to say what they mean. John Irving suicide mean people Our memory is a monster; you forget it - it does not. John Irving doe monsters memories I think the sport of wrestling, which I became involved with at the age of 14... I competed until I was 34, kind of old for a contact sport. I coached the sport until I was 47. I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline I have to write. John Irving writing birthday sports It was a sound like someone trying not to make a sound. John Irving sound trying The book works better if I know everything I can about the ending. Not just what happens, but how it happens and what the language is; not just the last sentence, but enough of the sentences surrounding that last sentence to know what the tone of voice is. I imagined it as something almost musical. Then you are writing toward something; you know the sound of your voice at the end of the story. That's how you want to sound in those final sentences: the degree that it is uplifting or not, the degree that it is melancholic or not. John Irving uplifting writing book
