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The more clearly one sees this world the more one is obliged to pretend it does not exist.

John Irving

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John Irving
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 2
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Exeter
New Hampshire
John Winslow Irving
Pretend
Sees
Clearly
Exist
Doe
World
Obliged

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He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.
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And never forget, there is memory.
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Kids are beautiful, man. And they know much more than grownups think they know. Kids are just perfect people until grownups get their hands on them.
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Garp drank the beer and wondered if everything was an anticlimax.
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There is no straightforward negotiation with a four year old.
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It is exhausting to be seventeen and not know who you are.
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Life forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can.
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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.
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Life is an X-rated soap opera.
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People only ask questions when they're ready to hear the answers.
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My old coach used to say that if you were in it for the match, if you were in it for the trophies, you were in it for the wrong reasons.
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You can't learn everything you need to know legally.
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I have always believed that, in a story, if something traumatic or calamitous enough happens to a kid at a formative age, that will make him or her the adult they become.
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…there is no nakedness that compares to being naked in front of someone for the first time.
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You can learn a lot from your lovers, but-for the most part-you get to keep your friends longer, and you learn more from them.
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I'm a worst-case scenario person. I'm only interested in a story because I kind of go, like a magnet, to the worst thing that can happen.
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You take every opportunity given you in this world, even if you have too many opportunities. One day, the opportunities stop, you know.
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The main character and the most important character are not always the same person - you have to know the difference.
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but writers, Garp knew, were just observers - good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.
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I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand.
John Irving