Quote

Life forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can.

John Irving

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John Irving
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 2
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Exeter
New Hampshire
John Winslow Irving
Sense
Final
Enough
Finals
Many
Forces
Life
Avoid
Decisions
Ones
Decision
Force
Unnecessary

More quotes by John Irving

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If pride is a sin ... moral pride is the greatest sin.
John Irving
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When writing a novel, I'm not smart enough to know how to foreshadow something if I don't know what it is.
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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.
John Irving
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Wrestling was my first success, the first thing that confirmed that I could be good at anything. Devoting yourself to wrestling, or tennis, or skiing, or dance, or to a musical instrument is a longing to be disciplined for a purpose.
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I think the sport of wrestling, which I became involved with at the age of 14... I competed until I was 34, kind of old for a contact sport. I coached the sport until I was 47. I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline I have to write.
John Irving
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Sometimes that's a year, sometimes it's 18 months, where all I'm doing is taking notes. I'm reconstructing the story from the back to the front so that I know where the front is.
John Irving
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What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman's freedom of choice, too.
John Irving
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You can't say you're going to ban something in the name of good taste, because then you have directed someone to play the role of good-taste police. We - Americans - permit bad taste in this country. In fact, we even encourage it.
John Irving
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The more clearly one sees this world the more one is obliged to pretend it does not exist.
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I don’t have to say to you or anyone in our WRESTLING community that we are a small world unto ourselves and there is often a big difference in how much we love and understand each other and how little we’re understood or appreciated by people who spend their weekends watching basketball.
John Irving
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The main character and the most important character are not always the same person - you have to know the difference.
John Irving
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Kids are perfect people till grownups get their hands on them.
John Irving
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Just because you're sober, don't think you're a good driver, Cookie.
John Irving
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Everybody dies … The thing is, to have a life before we die.
John Irving
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I still believe in getting married in churches and baptizing children. I go through those motions.
John Irving
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If you feel strongly about people having abortions, don't have one.
John Irving
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I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the story.
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In this world,” Franny once observed, “just as you’re trying to think of yourself as memorable, there is always someone who forgets that that they have met you.
John Irving
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but writers, Garp knew, were just observers - good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.
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