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Plot is a map and I begin with it. It is what made me admire the novels of the 19th century that the stories are foreshadowed. TheyÕre going someplace.

John Irving

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John Irving
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 2
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Exeter
New Hampshire
John Winslow Irving
Begin
Novel
Century
Foreshadowed
Creative
Someplace
Stories
Maps
Writing
Novels
Going
Plot
Made
Admire

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The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life led by human beings the second was that human beings could survive a life in hotels.
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If you asked me one day, I might say, Well, sometimes I feel a little bit religious. If you asked me another day, I'd just say flat out, No.
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… but only because exhaustion is a life-sign it is at least a form of being human.
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In a school community, someone who reads a book for some secretive purpose, other than discussing it, is strange. What was she reading for?
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If you presume to love something, you must love the process of it much more than you love the finished product.
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Rituals are comforting rituals combat loneliness.
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When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother's hand, his fingers could see in the dark.
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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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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.
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It happens to many teenagers-that moment when you feel full of resentment or distrust for those adults you once loved unquestioningly.
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Writing is hard. I learned how to work hard from wrestling, not English courses.
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Lilly was not crazy. She left a serious suicide note. 'Sorry,' said the note. 'Just not big enough.
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O God — please give him back! I shall keep asking You.
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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.
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In an episodic treatment, such as a teleplay is, you have the ability to do what you can do in a novel, which is flash back and flash forward in the same instant, in the same scene, in the same voice.
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There is no straightforward negotiation with a four year old.
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I believe in plot, in development of character, in the effect of the passage of time, in a good story - better than something you might find in the newspaper. And I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it.
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but writers, Garp knew, were just observers - good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.
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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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I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand.
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