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When I feel like being a director, I write a novel.

John Irving

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John Irving
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 2
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Exeter
New Hampshire
John Winslow Irving
Like
Director
Directors
Novel
Write
Feel
Feels
Writing

More quotes by John Irving

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And when you love a book, commit one glorious sentence of it-perhaps your favorite sentence-to memory. That way you won't forget the language of the story that moved you to tears.
John Irving
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If pride is a sin ... moral pride is the greatest sin.
John Irving
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You're nice,' Cushie told him, squeezing his hand. 'And you're my oldest friend.' But they both must have known that you can know someone all your life and never quite be friends.
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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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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You can give yourself a headache trying to decipher the tattoos on a naked man who’s leaping up and down on a bed.
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
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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.
John Irving
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You can learn a lot from your lovers, but-for the most part-you get to keep your friends longer, and you learn more from them.
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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So, you see, it's a real chore for me to write a book review because it's like a contest. It's like I'm writing that book review for every bad book reviewer I've ever known and it's a way of saying [thrusts a middle finger into the air] this is how you ought to do it. I like to rub their noses in it.
John Irving
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They all settled into being the kind of friends when they heard from each other.... or when they occasionally got together. And when they were not in touch, they did not think of one another.
John Irving
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Children are most impressed with the importance of a moment when they witness a parent breaking the parents' own rule.
John Irving
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I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand.
John Irving
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If you feel strongly about people having abortions, don't have one.
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 always thought that you could do worse than find yourself dying in the company of a devoted former student.
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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All men are liars, said Roberta Muldoon, who knew this was true because she had once been a man.
John Irving
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He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson
John Irving