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The unspoken factor is love. The reason I can work so hard at my writing is that it's not work for me.

John Irving

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John Irving
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 2
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Exeter
New Hampshire
John Winslow Irving
Factors
Reason
Hard
Writing
Work
Love
Unspoken
Factor

More quotes by John Irving

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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
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The excitement of anticipation was *almost* equal to the thrill of lovemaking.
John Irving
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I think that was when the headmaster realized he had lost he realized then that he was finished. Because, what could he do? Was he going to tell us to stop praying? We kept our heads bowed and we kept praying. Even as awkward as he was, the Rev. Mr. Merrill had made it clear to us that there was no end to praying for Owen Meany.
John Irving
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Keep passing the open windows.
John Irving
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Sell my old clothes - I'm off to heaven
John Irving
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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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It was a sound like someone trying not to make a sound.
John Irving
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Whereas she wished more of the population were better educated, she also believed that education was largely wasted on the majority of the people she met.
John Irving
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A personal injustice is stronger motivation than any instinct for philanthropy.
John Irving
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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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If you can't love crudeness, how can you truly love mankind?
John Irving
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He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.
John Irving
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I have no respect for the right-to-life position, though I have every respect for an individual who says, I could never have that procedure, I could never see a film or read a book about that procedure. It doesn't bother me if people feel that way.
John Irving
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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.
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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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.
John Irving
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It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.
John Irving
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Garp drank the beer and wondered if everything was an anticlimax.
John Irving
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Life is an X-rated soap opera.
John Irving
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This is what self-centered religion does to us: it allows us to use it to further our own ends.
John Irving