If you feel strongly about people having abortions, don't have one. — John Irving Abortion Copy Share Image
“LIBERACE!' Owen would have cried. 'WHO WOULD HAVE BELIEVED IT POSSIBLE? LIBERACE! KILLED BY WATERMELONS!” — John Irving Copy Share Image
Be serious. Life hurts. Reflect what hurts. I don't mean that you can't also be funny, or have fun, but at the… — John Irving End of the day Copy Share Image
“He might have told Homer, then, that he loved him very much and that he needed something very active to occupy himself… — John Irving Copy Share Image
“There is no Purgatory-that's a catholic invention. There's life on earth, There's heaven-and there's hell” — John Irving Heaven Copy Share Image
“A novel is always more complicated than it seems at the beginning. Indeed a novel should be more complicated than it seems… — John Irving Books Copy Share Image
“I think about you more and more, but I don't waste my time - or yours - thinking about who you were… — John Irving Copy Share Image
He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences. — John Irving Books Copy Share Image
“If you live long enough, Bill - it's a world of epilogues," Richard Abbott said.” — John Irving Epilogues Copy Share Image
“Remember," Duncan asked on the plane, "how Walt asked if it was green or brown?" Both Garp and Duncan laughed. But it… — John Irving Bad weather Copy Share Image
No adult in my family would ever tell me anything about who my father was. I knew from an older cousin -… — John Irving Adults Copy Share Image
I have lots of notebooks around, because one great advantage of writing by hand-in addition to how much it slows you down-is… — John Irving Advantage Copy Share Image
Titles are important; I have them before I have books that belong to them. I have last chapters in my mind before… — John Irving Aftermath Copy Share Image
“it struck him as a brilliant accusation to make of anyone who was slightly (or hugely) different. It was the best rumor… — John Irving Accusation Copy Share Image
It's a no-win argument - that business of what we're born with and what our environment does to us. And it's a… — John Irving Argument Copy Share Image
If you don't feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then… — John Irving Copy Share Image
Anyone can be sentimental about the nativity; any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event;… — John Irving Copy Share Image
“On his bedside table, between the reading lamp and the telephone, was his battered copy of David Copperfield. Homer didn't have to… — John Irving Books Copy Share Image
I want to go on being a student," I told him. "I want to be a teacher. I'm just a reader," I… — John Irving Ashamed Copy Share Image
If you are careful,' Garp wrote, 'if you use good ingredients, and you don't take any shortcuts, then you can usually cook… — John Irving Care Copy Share Image
I'm not typing. I write only by longhand. I've always written first drafts by hand and then once I was into a… — John Irving Copy Share Image
“For Homer Wells, it was different. He did not imagine leaving St. Cloud's. The Princes of Maine that Homer saw, the Kings… — John Irving Copy Share Image
The book works better if I know everything I can about the ending. Not just what happens, but how it happens and… — John Irving Book Copy Share Image
“If you don't feel you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then what… — John Irving Losing control Copy Share Image
“When Homer Wells saw the stationmaster’s brain stem exposed, he felt that Dr. Larch was busy enough – with both hands –… — John Irving Copy Share Image
But I often think that so-called glamorous people are just very busy people. — John Irving Copy Share Image
We will often do anything to pretend that nothing is on our minds. — John Irving Mind Copy Share Image
“I won’t pretend that it wasn’t gratifying to hear this, but I would rather have heard it privately; it wasn’t something I… — John Irving Copy Share Image
