John Irving

Life is serious but art is fun!

— John Irving

Sell my old clothes - I'm off to heaven

— John Irving

“Bonkie bit Garp!" Garp bit Bonkie”

— John Irving

“You know what I love... everything.”

— John Irving

My life is a reading list.

— John Irving

I’m not afraid, but I’m very nervous.

— John Irving

The object of war is to survive it.

— John Irving

“Buster was queer as a cat fart.”

— John Irving

Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.

— John Irving

It's because even a good man can't always be right, that we need ... rules.

— John Irving

You can't learn everything you need to know legally.

— John Irving

It's not right to hurt or deceive someone who's already been hurt and deceived.

— John Irving

Kids are perfect people till grownups get their hands on them.

— John Irving

“Meaning Michael Milton; meaning the whole thing.”

— John Irving

“I'm just a woman with a penis!" she would say, her voice rising.”

— John Irving

Good habits are worth being fanatical about.

— John Irving

Nearly everything seems a letdown after a writer has finished writing something.

— John Irving

“don't worry - so what if there is no life after death? There is life after Garp, believe me.”

— John Irving

I wasn't afraid of anything until I had a kid. Then I was terrified because immediately I could imagine a hundred ways…

— John Irving

“Jenny Fields felt undone, the way only a person who has been careful can feel when confronted by a mistake.”

— John Irving

“Of course, apologies are rarely acceptable to true believers - or to anyone who believes in *pure* good, or in pure evil.”

— John Irving

“Once again, Jack reached for her hand. It was the only thing he knew how to do. As it would turn out,…

— John Irving

It is much easier to be flexible about where a story begins than it ever was for me to change my mind…

— John Irving

“...it was a feeling with nowhere to go. Was that what love was, and how it came to you--leaving you no options…

— John Irving

I have a friend who says that reviewers are the tickbirds of the literary rhinoceros-but he is being kind. Tickbirds perform a…

— John Irving

I don't begin a novel until I have written, not just the last sentence, but usually, as a result thereof, many of…

— John Irving

I will tell you what is my overriding perception of the last twenty years: that we are a civilization careening toward a…

— John Irving

Is it a democratic society that condemns people to the accident of conception? What are we-monkeys? If you expect people to be…

— John Irving

“It was not the cold that made you want to rush out as soon as you'd jumped in; it was the unmeasured…

— John Irving

We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly--as if out…

— John Irving

“You've witnessed what you c-c-c-call a miracle and now you believe-you believe everything," Pastor Merrill said. "But miracles don't c-c-c-cause belief-real miracles…

— John Irving

“For a terrible time of life a teen-ager deceives himself; he believes he can trick the world. He believes he is invulnerable.…

— John Irving

“Some producer actually told Franny that profanity revealed a poor vocabulary and a lack of imagination. And Frank and Lilly and Father…

— John Irving

“The Winkles appeared to greet the morning vigorously. Although Homer had never heard human beings make love, or moose mate, he knew…

— John Irving

“Dr. Larch bent over him and kissed him, very lightly, on his lips. Homer heard Dr. Larch whisper, ‘Good work, Homer.’ He…

— John Irving

“while we waited to see what God would do. I heard a tear fall—it was one of my grandmother’s tears, and I…

— John Irving

“REMEMBER WATAHANTOWET?” he asked me. “I remember,” I said. Then he smiled at the “penguin” who was trying to make him comfortable…

— John Irving

And Father said, “There are no happy endings.” “Right!” cried Iowa Bob – an odd mixture of exuberance and stoicism in his…

— John Irving

“THAT IS WHERE THIS COUNTRY IS HEADED—IT IS HEADED TOWARD OVERSIMPLIFICATION. YOU WANT TO SEE A PRESIDENT OF THE FUTURE? TURN ON…

— John Irving

“Homer Wells, listening to Big Dot Taft, felt like her voice – dulled. Wally was away, Candy was away, and the anatomy…

— John Irving