697 Quotes by John Irving

If you don't feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn't very vital.

When I feel like being a director, I write a novel.

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.

I always begin with a character or characters, and then try to think up as much action for them as possible.

When I love a novel I've read, I want to reread it - in part, to see how it was constructed.

You live your life at the time you live it -- you don't have much of an overview when what's happening to you is still happening.

We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly--as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth--the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives

There's no reason you should write any novel quickly.

Human sexuality makes farcical our most serious intentions.