697 Quotes by John Irving

Only the chicken-lover will understand me. He will give me a kindly look, maybe mildly desirous. His eyes will tell me: You might look a lot better with some reddish-brown feathers.

The code of small towns is simple but encompassing: if many forms of craziness are allowed, many forms of cruelty are ignored. Piggy.

Like the rooftop dogs, they were lost souls – they were running wild, or they drifted around town like ghosts.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Whatever I write, no matter how gray or dark the subject matter, it’s still going to be a comic novel.

Women know when men don’t desire them: ghosts and witches, deities and demons, angels of death – even virgins, even ordinary women. They always know; women can tell when you have stopped desiring them.

Never confuse faith, or belief – of any kind – with something even remotely intellectual.

As often as I feel certain that God exists, I feel as often at a loss to say what difference it makes – that He exists – or even: that to believe in God, which I do, raises more questions than it presents answers. Thus, when I am feeling my most faithful, I also feel full of a few hard questions that I would like to put to God – I mean, critical questions of the How-Can-He, How-Could-He, How-Dare-You variety.

If you can’t love crudeness, how can you truly love mankind?