All John Irving Quotes
- In our hearts... there must abide some pity for those people who have always felt themselves to be separate from even their most familiar surroundings,… Abide
- Self-hatred is worse than loneliness. Hatred
- I write very quickly; I rewrite very slowly. It takes me nearly as long to rewrite a book as it does to get the first… Book
- Titles are important; I have them before I have books that belong to them. I have last chapters in my mind before I see first… Aftermath
- I get up early. I like to read a little before anyone but the dog is up. I also like to read at night, not… Anyone
- I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a… Backwards
- I grew up without a father, who was kept a mystery to me. There was a sense of uprootedness, things being one day here and… All
- I never wanted my kids to feel I was more interested in anything I was doing than I was in them. Feel
- The principal event of my childhood was that no adult in my family would tell me who my father was. Adult
- One of the humbling things about having written more than one novel is the sense that every time you begin, that new empty page does… Begin
- I think that writers are, at best, outsiders to the society they inhabit. They have a kind of detachment, or try to have. Best
- I sometimes think that what I do as a writer is make a kind of colouring book, where all the lines are there, and then… All
- My first attraction to writing novels was the plot, that almost extinct animal. Those novels I read which made me want to be a novelist… Almost Extinct
- I believe that, in any novel of mine, the principal objective is the construction of the whole. Any
- I lived five years in the Midwest, and I loved it. The people were so nice. The people were so open. Five
- I find screenplays easy to write, my novels being very visual. You see what people look like. The physical action is described. Action
- If you care about something you have to protect it. If you're lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to… Care
- Oh FUCK the longings and agonies of youth. Agonies