697 Quotes by John Irving

But Vienna was in its death phase; it lay still and let me look at it, and think about it, and look again. In a living city, I could never have noticed so much. Living cities don’t hold still.

There is at least one terrible thing about lovers – real lovers, I mean: people who are in love with each other, even then they will relish their every physical contact in a sexual way; even when they’re supposed to be in a kind of mourning, they can get aroused. Franny and I simply couldn’t have gone on holding each other on the stairs: it was impossible to touch each other, at all, and not want to touch everything.

You’d better leave your chromosomes at the door.

May God watch over your soul, which no man may abuse.

There’s no reason you shouldn’t, as a writer, not be aware of the necessity to revise yourself constantly.

When you lie, it makes you feel in charge of your life. Telling lies is very seductive to orphans. I know because I tell them, too. I love to lie. When you lie, you feel as if you have cheated fate – your own, and everybody else’s.

The only reason for something to happen in a novel is that it’s the perfect thing to have happen at that time.

When people die, Vargas – I mean the people you will always remember, the ones who changed your life – they never really go away,” Pepe told the young doctor.

Lupe began to recite a list of reasons. “One: love of dogs,” she started. “Two: to be stars – in a circus, we might be famous. Three: because the parrot man will come visit us, and our future – ” She stopped for a second. “His future, anyway,” Lupe said, pointing to her brother. “His future is in the parrot man’s hands – I just know it is, circus or no circus.