Quote

No touching Baby Jesus.” “But we’re his parents!” proclaimed Mary Beth, who was being generous to include poor Joseph under this appellation. “Mary Beth,” Barb Wiggin said, “if you touch the Baby Jesus, I’m putting you in a cow costume.

John Irving

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John Irving
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 2
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Exeter
New Hampshire
John Winslow Irving
Poor
Touching
Barbs
Jesus
Mary
Beth
Generous
Proclaimed
Putting
Joseph
Touch
Costume
Baby
Costumes
Parents
Include
Barb
Parent
Cows
Appellation

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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.
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I'm a very old-fashioned novelist. I write 19th-century novels, where a lot of rules apply.
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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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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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Sell my old clothes - I'm off to heaven
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And I find - I'm 63, and my capacity to be by myself and just spend time by myself hasn't diminished any. That's the necessary part of being a writer, you better like being alone.
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I’m not afraid, but I’m very nervous.
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I'm not a movie person. They're collaborations of the worst kind. You must compromise yourself to many interests that are venal and crass and do not have your best interests at heart.
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When I feel like being a director, I write a novel.
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Garp drank the beer and wondered if everything was an anticlimax.
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Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.
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The concept of writing a novel and not knowing where it's going - I don't know how to do that. Novels are plot- and character-driven, so if I don't know what becomes of people, how can I know where it should begin?
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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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Rituals are comforting rituals combat loneliness.
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My life is a reading list.
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Just because you're sober, don't think you're a good driver, Cookie.
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I grew up in a family where, through my teenage years, I was expected to go to church on Sunday. It wasn't terribly painful.
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It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.
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I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand.
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