When I love a novel I've read, I want to reread it - in part, to see how it was constructed. — John Irving Copy Share Image
I believe that, in any novel of mine, the principal objective is the construction of the whole. — John Irving Copy Share Image
I'm a very old-fashioned novelist. I write 19th-century novels, where a lot of rules apply. — John Irving Copy Share Image
I think there is often a 'what if' proposition that gets me thinking about all my novels. — John Irving Copy Share Image
The building of the architecture of a novel - the craft of it - is something I never tire of. — John Irving Copy Share Image
“Like any good novel, it lulled him into an almost tranquil state of awareness before it jolted him - it caught him… — John Irving Copy Share Image
Anybody can do research. The plotting of the novel, writing the ending before you write anything else, which I always do -… — John Irving Copy Share Image
I write very quickly; I rewrite very slowly. It takes me nearly as long to rewrite a book as it does to… — John Irving Copy Share Image
And when you love a book, commit one glorious sentence of it-perhaps your favorite sentence-to memory. That way you won't forget the… — John Irving Copy Share Image
In a school community, someone who reads a book for some secretive purpose, other than discussing it, is strange. What was she… — John Irving Copy Share Image
“Ruth thought of a novel as a great, untidy house, a disorderly mansion; her job was to make the place fit to… — John Irving 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 Copy Share Image
“I must part with you for my whole life," she read, with horror. "I must begin a new existence amongst strange faces… — John Irving Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“The one critisism the author of Slaugherhouse-Five would make of the young writer was what he called a punctuation problem. Mr. Vonnegut… — John Irving Copy Share Image
'Great Expectations' was an important novel in my adolescence. It was very much one of those emblematic novels that made me wish… — John Irving 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 Copy Share Image
You don't want to be ungenerous toward people who give you prizes, but it is never the social or political message that… — John Irving Copy Share Image
The concept of writing a novel and not knowing where it's going - I don't know how to do that. Novels are… — John Irving Copy Share Image
Life," Garp wrote, "is sadly not structured like a good old-fashioned novel. Instead an end occurs when those who are meant to… — John Irving Copy Share Image
My first attraction to writing novels was the plot, that almost extinct animal. Those novels I read which made me want to… — John Irving Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“But the penultimate paragraph of the novel is naturally the passage I wrote first. “When we held Owen Meany above our heads,… — John Irving Copy Share Image
“Novels were not arguments; a story worked, or it didn't, on its own merits. What did it matter if a detail was… — John Irving Copy Share Image
It's magical thinking to imagine that the reason unspeakable things are being perpetrated by younger and younger people is that they've fallen… — John Irving Copy Share Image
“Because of A Prayer for Owen Meany, many of my readers assume I am “religious.” I go to church only occasionally—like a… — John Irving Copy Share Image
I grew up around books - my grandmother's house, where I lived as a small child, was full of books. My father… — John Irving Copy Share Image
A novel is a piece of architecture. It's not random wallowings or confessional diaries. It's a building-it has to have walls and… — John Irving Copy Share Image
I write very quickly; I rewrite very slowly. It takes me nearly as long to rewrite a book as it does to… — John Irving Copy Share Image
'The Fourth Hand' was a novel that came from twenty years of screenwriting concurrently with whatever novel I'm writing. — John Irving Copy Share Image
I find screenplays easy to write, my novels being very visual. You see what people look like. The physical action is described. — John Irving Copy Share Image
“Wherever Melony went, she would not be without guidance, she would not be without love, without faith; she had a good book… — John Irving Copy Share Image
“Good night you Kings of New England. You Princes of Maine." Who knows what book this quote comes from?” — John Irving Copy Share Image
I suppose I'm proudest of my novels for what's imagined in them. I think the world of my imagination is a richer… — John Irving Copy Share Image
So, you see, it's a real chore for me to write a book review because it's like a contest. It's like I'm… — John Irving Copy Share Image
For most of my life, when I've finished the book I'm writing, there've always been as many as two or three other… — John Irving Copy Share Image
I had been a student in Vienna, and one of the neat little things I had found out was about that zoo.… — John Irving Copy Share Image
The characters in my novels, from the very first one, are always on some quixotic effort of attempting to control something that… — John Irving Copy Share Image
“It was Owen Meany who taught me that any good book is always in motion—from the general to the specific, from the… — John Irving Copy Share Image
Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from… — John Irving Copy Share Image
… and so he tried to accept the ache in his heart as what Dr. Larch would call the common symptoms of normal life. — John Irving Copy Share Image
Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean––make sure they know what they mean! — John Irving Copy Share Image
The desire to never leave your side, the desire to never see you again. The desire to see your face asleep on the pillow… — John Irving Copy Share Image
I had been a student in Vienna, and one of the neat little things I had found out was about that zoo. It was… — John Irving Copy Share Image
“God, I think I just hit a high E-flat - and I really held it!" Esmeralda said, after one of her more prolonged orgasms,… — John Irving Copy Share Image
“Nostalgia!" Miss Frost cried. "You´re nostalgic!" She repeated. "Just how old are you, William?" She asked. "Seventeen, " I told her. "Seventeen!" Miss Frost… — John Irving Copy Share Image
“JUST BECAUSE A BUNCH OF ATHEISTS ARE BETTER WRITERS THAN THE GUYS WHO WROTE THE BIBLE DOESN'T NECESSARILY MAKE THEM RIGHT!" [Owen Meany] said… — John Irving Copy Share Image
It is much easier to be flexible about where a story begins than it ever was for me to change my mind about where… — John Irving Copy Share Image
“Only the chicken-lover will understand me. He will give me a kindly look, maybe mildly desirous. His eyes will tell me: You might look… — John Irving Copy Share Image
You're nice,' Cushie told him, squeezing his hand. 'And you're my oldest friend.' But they both must have known that you can know someone… — John Irving Copy Share Image
![“So, you see, it's a real chore for me to write a book review because it's like a contest. It's like I'm writing that book review for every bad book reviewer I've ever known and it's a way of saying [thrusts a middle finger into the air] this is how you ought to do it. I like to rub their noses in…” quote by John Irving](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/b5d/john-irving-337_air_so-you-see-it-s-a-real-chore-for-me-to-w_1152495.jpg)
![“JUST BECAUSE A BUNCH OF ATHEISTS ARE BETTER WRITERS THAN THE GUYS WHO WROTE THE BIBLE DOESN'T NECESSARILY MAKE THEM RIGHT!" [Owen Meany] said crossly. "LOOK AT THOSE WEIRDO TV MIRACLE-WORKERS--THEY'RE TRYING TO GET PEOPLE TO BELIEVE IN MAGIC! BUT THE REAL MIRACLES AREN'T ANYTHING YOU CAN…” quote by John Irving](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/70e/john-irving-337_atheists_just-because-a-bunch-of-atheists-are-bet_31804.jpg)
