697 Quotes by John Irving

Vielleicht muss es im Leben eines Schriftstellers diesen Augenblick geben, in dem ein anderer Schriftsteller beschuldigt wird, seinen Beruf verfehlt zu haben.

At times, he admitted, he had been very happy in the apple business. He knew what Larch would have told him: that his happiness was not the point, or that it wasn't as important as his usefulness.

She felt if she ever had children she would love them no less when they were twenty than when they were two; they might need you more at twenty, she thought. What do you really need when you're two? In the hospital, the babies were the easiest patients. The older they got, the more they needed; and the less anyone wanted or loved them.

In increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us -- not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss.

...the single ingredient in American literature that distinguishes it from other literatures of the world is a kind of giddy, illogical hopefulness. It is quite technically sophisticated while remaining ideologically naïve.

Life is serious but art is fun!

Adolescence. Is it the first time in life we discover that we have something terrible to hide from those who love us?

What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.

DO YOU CALL THAT MORALITY? DO YOU CALL THAT RESPONSIBLE? THE PRESIDENT IS ELECTED TO UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION; TO PUT THAT MORE BROADLY, HE'S CHOSEN TO UPHOLD THE LAW--HE'S NOT GIVEN A LICENSE TO OPERATE ABOVE THE LAW, HE'S SUPPOSED TO BE OUR EXAMPLE!