697 Quotes by John Irving

Patriotism is not necessarily defined as blind devotion to a president’s particular agenda – and that to dispute a presidential policy is not necessarily anti-American.

A part of adolescence is feelimg that there’s no one else around who’s enough like youself to understand you.

Well, you finally got me,” Helen had whispered to him, tearfully, but Garp had sprawled there, on his back on the wrestling mat, wondering who had gotten whom.

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.

Well, that boy’s voice,” my grandmother told me, “that boy’s voice could bring those mice back to life!” And it occurs to me now that Owen’s voice was the voice of all those murdered mice, coming back to life – with a vengeance.

If you want to worry about something, you ought to worry about how Guadalupe was looking at you. Like she’s still making up her mind about you. Guadalupe hasn’t decided about you,” the clairvoyant child had told him.

I don’t begin a novel or a screenplay until I know the ending. And I don’t mean only that I have to know what happens. I mean that I have to hear the actual sentences. I have to know what atmosphere the words convey.

The main character and the most important character are not always the same person – you have to know the difference.

Human beings are remarkable – at what we can learn to live with. If we couldn’t get strong from what we lose, and what we miss, and what we want and can’t have, then we couldn’t ever get strong enough, could we? What else makes us strong?