“From Hester’s bedroom—even though the door was closed—we could hear her breathing; Hester’s breathing, when she’d been drinking, was something between a… — John Irving Owen Meany 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 Almost Copy Share Image
“It galls me that seeking out the seedy, the sordid, the sexual, and the deviant is the expected (if not altogether acceptable)… — John Irving Courage Copy Share Image
“Ruth knew very well what the killer thought he had heard: he'd heard the sound of someone trying not to make a… — John Irving Suspense Copy Share Image
“A man named Hero washed the press cloths; Meany Hyde told Homer that the man had been a kind of hero, once.… — 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 Christian Copy Share Image
“She was convinced that women were as often victims of themselves as they were of men.” — John Irving Copy Share Image
“It's Shakespearean, Bill; lots of the important stuff in Shakespeare happens offstage - you just hear about it.” — John Irving Shakespearean Copy Share Image
Don't forget this, too: Rumors aren't interested in the unsensational story; rumors don't care what's true. — John Irving Care 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 Believe Copy Share Image
The former stewardess glared at her ex-pilot husband as if he had been speaking, and thinking, in the absence of sufficient oxygen. — John Irving Absence 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 Books Copy Share Image
“There’s nothing I need or want to know from the writers I admire that isn’t in their books. It’s better to read… — John Irving Book Copy Share Image
“Doris Wales was a woman with straw-blond hair whose body appeared to have been dipped in corn oil; then she must have… — John Irving Love Bites Copy Share Image
The gardener had a dread of small women; he'd always imagined them to have an anger disproportionate to their size. — John Irving Dread Copy Share Image
“And in our Scripture class, Owen said, "IT'S TRUE THAT THE DISCIPLES ARE STUPID - THEY NEVER UNDERSTAND WHAT JESUS MEANS, THEY'RE… — John Irving Believe in god Copy Share Image
“Because I was a Wheelwright-and, therefore, a New England snob-I'd assumed that Phoenix was largely composed of Mormons and Baptists and Republicans;” — John Irving Copy Share Image
If you asked me one day, I might say, "Well, sometimes I feel a little bit religious." If you asked me another… — John Irving Another day Copy Share Image
The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't… — John Irving Behave Copy Share Image
We will often do anything to pretend that nothing is on our minds. — John Irving Mind Copy Share Image
When I love a novel I've read, I want to reread it - in part, to see how it was constructed. — John Irving Books Copy Share Image
“pitch. This is what a self-centered religion does to us: it allows us to use it to further our own ends.” — John Irving Religion Copy Share Image
“There's nothing so confusing as finding out that you don't know someone you thought you knew.” — John Irving Copy Share Image
“living in a world where nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.” I” — John Irving Life Copy Share Image
