“AND LOOK AT WHAT WE CALL ‘RELIGION’: TURN ON ANY TELEVISION ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING! SEE THE CHOIRS OF THE POOR AND… — John Irving Church and state Copy Share Image
“Of course: because it was in one of the camps that he went blind. They had performed some failed experiment on his… — John Irving Summer camp Copy Share Image
When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces… — John Irving Another day Copy Share Image
“will tell you what is my overriding perception of the last twenty years: that we are a civilization careening toward a succession… — John Irving Death Copy Share Image
The unspoken factor is love. The reason I can work so hard at my writing is that it's not work for me. — John Irving Factors Copy Share Image
You can give yourself a headache trying to decipher the tattoos on a naked man who’s leaping up and down on a… — John Irving Bed Copy Share Image
so my grandmother was not without humanity. and if she wore cocktail dresses when she labored in the garden, they were cocktail… — John Irving Cleaners Copy Share Image
It seems to me that people who don’t learn as easily as others suffer from a kind of learning disability—there is something… — John Irving Ability Copy Share Image
The principal event of my childhood was that no adult in my family would tell me who my father was. — John Irving Adult Copy Share Image
“That’s what I love about boys,” Marion told him. “No matter what, you just go about your business.” — John Irving Business Copy Share Image
The excitement of anticipation was *almost* equal to the thrill of lovemaking ... — John Irving Adventure Copy Share Image
Half my life is an act of revision; more than half the act is performed with small changes. — John Irving Half Copy Share Image
I never know when I finish the novel I am writing which will be the next novel out of the station. — John Irving Books Copy Share Image
“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 Adolescence Copy Share Image
“[...]every study of the gods, of everyone's gods, is a revelation of vengeance toward the innocent” — John Irving Education Copy Share Image
“Look at the world: look at how many of our peerless leaders presume to tell us that they know what God wants!… — John Irving Leadership Copy Share Image
Most places we leave in childhood grow less, not more, fancy. — John Irving Childhood Copy Share Image
“...there's a limit to enduring admiration being a substitute for love.” — John Irving Admiration 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 Books Copy Share Image
He was one of those people things came easily to, but he did little to demonstrate that he deserved to be gifted. — John Irving Gifted Copy Share Image
No one could have fathomed what a life he'd led, for it was chiefly a life lived in his mind. — John Irving Life Copy Share Image
“Wilbur Larch knew that freedom was an orphan’s most dangerous illusion, and when he finally heard from Homer, he scanned the oddly… — John Irving Freedom Copy Share Image
