Quote

I think now that is the nature of hymns-they make us want to repeat them...they are a part of any service, and often the only part of a funeral service, that makes us feel everything is acceptable.

John Irving

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John Irving
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 2
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Exeter
New Hampshire
John Winslow Irving
Thinking
Makes
Nature
Hymns
Part
Funeral
Everything
Repeat
Feel
Repeats
Feels
Acceptable
Make
Service
Think
Often

More quotes by John Irving

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Garp drank the beer and wondered if everything was an anticlimax.
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A personal injustice is stronger motivation than any instinct for philanthropy.
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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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Religious freedom should work two ways: we should be free to practice the religion of our choice, but we must also be free from having someone else's religion practiced on us.
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Nothing moves at the Hotel New Hampshire! We're screwed down here-for life!
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If you feel strongly about people having abortions, don't have one. But we are a country - USA - that likes to be punitive. We want to restrict. It is a kind of religious fervor run amuck.
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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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Keep passing the open windows.
John Irving
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It's not right to hurt or deceive someone who's already been hurt and deceived.
John Irving
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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.
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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.
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Ambition robs you of your childhood. The moment you want to become an adult—in any way—something in your childhood dies.
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Owen Meany believed that “coincidence” was a stupid, shallow refuge sought by stupid, shallow people who were unable to accept the fact that their lives were shaped by a terrifying and awesome design – more powerful and unstoppable than the Yankee Flyer. (a train)
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There's no reason you should write any novel quickly.
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In this world,” Franny once observed, “just as you’re trying to think of yourself as memorable, there is always someone who forgets that that they have met you.
John Irving
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Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.
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It's a no-win argument - that business of what we're born with and what our environment does to us. And it's a boring argument, because it simplifies the mysteries that attend both our birth and our growth.
John Irving
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You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else.
John Irving
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It is amazing to me, now, how such wild imaginings and philosophies - inspired by a night charged with frights and calamities - made such perfectly good sense to Owen Meany and me, but good friends are nothing to each other if they are not supportive.
John Irving
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You can't learn everything you need to know legally.
John Irving