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I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand.

John Irving

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John Irving
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 2
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Exeter
New Hampshire
John Winslow Irving
Longhand
Drafts
Preferred
Written
Firsts
First
Writing
Always

More quotes by John Irving

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If I have any advantage, maybe, as a writer, it is that I don't think I'm very interesting. I mean, beginning a novel with the last sentence is a pretty plodding way to spend your life.
John Irving
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Nothing moves at the Hotel New Hampshire! We're screwed down here-for life!
John Irving
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I’m not afraid, but I’m very nervous.
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but writers, Garp knew, were just observers - good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.
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Owen Meany believed that “coincidence” was a stupid, shallow refuge sought by stupid, shallow people who were unable to accept the fact that their lives were shaped by a terrifying and awesome design – more powerful and unstoppable than the Yankee Flyer. (a train)
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I do know where I'm going and it's just a matter of finding the language to get there.
John Irving
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There's no reason you should write any novel quickly.
John Irving
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Thus we try to keep our heroes alive hence we remember them.
John Irving
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Like many successful people he made good use of disappointments - responding to them with energy, with near-frenzied activity, rather than needing to recover from them.
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Among adults – and among orphans – Wilbur Larch noted that delirious happiness was rare.
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The excitement of anticipation was *almost* equal to the thrill of lovemaking.
John Irving
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My dear boy, please don’t put a label on me—don’t make me a category before you get to know me!
John Irving
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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 all your life and never quite be friends.
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I'm not at all contemporary, not even modern, and the fact that I would be so quaintly attracted to that wrestling rule makes me, I suppose, seem all the more old-fashioned. I believe in rules of behavior, and I'm quite interested in stories about the consequences of breaking those rules.
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Everybody dies … The thing is, to have a life before we die.
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If I had to be anything, he told her, I'd probably be a socialist, but I don't want to be anything.
John Irving
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I don't want you to describe to me—not ever—what you were doing to that poor boy to make him sound like that but if you ever do it again, please cover his mouth with your hand.
John Irving
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Our memory is a monster you forget it - it does not.
John Irving
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There's nothing as scary as the future.
John Irving
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You don't want to be ungenerous toward people who give you prizes, but it is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel. I begin with an interest in a relationship, a situation, a character.
John Irving