Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
The characters in my novels, from the very first one, are always on some quixotic effort of attempting to control something that is uncontrollable - some element of the world that is essentially random and out of control.
John Irving
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
John Irving
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 2
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Exeter
New Hampshire
John Winslow Irving
World
Novel
Uncontrollable
Control
Random
Effort
Attempting
Character
Novels
Firsts
Essentially
First
Element
Something
Elements
Always
Characters
Quixotic
More quotes by John Irving
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
O God — please give him back! I shall keep asking You.
John Irving
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
… but only because exhaustion is a life-sign it is at least a form of being human.
John Irving
It happens to many teenagers-that moment when you feel full of resentment or distrust for those adults you once loved unquestioningly.
John Irving
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.
John Irving
Our memory is a monster you forget it - it does not.
John Irving
I have a very poor record at multiple choice questions.
John Irving
I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand.
John Irving
I always thought that you could do worse than find yourself dying in the company of a devoted former student.
John Irving
Children are most impressed with the importance of a moment when they witness a parent breaking the parents' own rule.
John Irving
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.
John Irving
The more clearly one sees this world the more one is obliged to pretend it does not exist.
John Irving
It's not right to hurt or deceive someone who's already been hurt and deceived.
John Irving
And never forget, there is memory.
John Irving
But I felt certain that if the world would stop indulging wars and famines and other perils, it would be possible for human beings to embarrass each other to death. Our self-destruction might take a little longer that way, but I believe it would be no less complete.
John Irving
There's nothing as scary as the future.
John Irving
You take every opportunity given you in this world, even if you have too many opportunities. One day, the opportunities stop, you know.
John Irving
The ability to see the future can be a burden, and the younger you are and the more isolated you feel, maybe the more of a burden it is.
John Irving
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
