Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

John Irving
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 2
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Exeter
New Hampshire
John Winslow Irving
Socialist
Told
Probably
Anything

More quotes by John Irving

Image
Nothing moves at the Hotel New Hampshire! We're screwed down here-for life!
John Irving
Image
The arrangements that couples make in order to maintain civility in the midst of their journey to divorce are often most elaborate when the professed top priority is to protect a child.
John Irving
Image
A woman half dressed seemed to have some power, but a man was simply not as handsome as when he was naked, and not as secure as when he was clothed.
John Irving
Image
I have pretty thick skin, and I think if you're going to be in this business, if you're going to be an actor or a writer, you better have a thick skin.
John Irving
Image
The only way you get Americans to notice anything is to tax them or draft them or kill them.
John Irving
Image
Lilly was not crazy. She left a serious suicide note. 'Sorry,' said the note. 'Just not big enough.
John Irving
Image
There's a lot of ignorance about how long it takes to write a novel. There's a lot of ignorance about how long a novel is in your head before you start to write it.
John Irving
Image
I don't begin a novel until I have written, not just the last sentence, but usually, as a result thereof, many of the surrounding final paragraphs, so that in addition to knowing what happens, I know what the voice is.
John Irving
Image
Writing is hard. I learned how to work hard from wrestling, not English courses.
John Irving
Image
I'm a very old-fashioned novelist. I write 19th-century novels, where a lot of rules apply.
John Irving
Image
You think you have a memory but it has you!
John Irving
Image
Safer than we are.” I told Franny. “Safer than love.” “let me tell ya kid,” Franny said to me, squeezing my hand. “Everything’s safer than love.
John Irving
Image
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
Image
The excitement of anticipation was *almost* equal to the thrill of lovemaking.
John Irving
Image
Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.
John Irving
Image
When I finally write the first sentence, I want to know everything that happens, so that I am not inventing the story as I write it - rather, I am remembering a story that has already happened.
John Irving
Image
All men are liars, said Roberta Muldoon, who knew this was true because she had once been a man.
John Irving
Image
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.
John Irving
Image
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.
John Irving
Image
It is exhausting to be seventeen and not know who you are.
John Irving