Quote

Writing is hard. I learned how to work hard from wrestling, not English courses.

John Irving

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

John Irving
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 2
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Exeter
New Hampshire
John Winslow Irving
Wrestling
English
Learned
Courses
Hard
Writing
Work

More quotes by John Irving

Image
…there is no nakedness that compares to being naked in front of someone for the first time.
John Irving
Image
For most of my life, when I've finished the book I'm writing, there've always been as many as two or three other novels waiting to be written next. And the decision driving which one of them it should be was never based on how long it had waited or how many accumulated pages of notes I had.
John Irving
Image
My dear boy, please don’t put a label on me—don’t make me a category before you get to know me!
John Irving
Image
I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand.
John Irving
Image
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
Image
I don't want you to describe to me—not ever—what you were doing to that poor boy to make him sound like that but if you ever do it again, please cover his mouth with your hand.
John Irving
Image
It's not right to hurt or deceive someone who's already been hurt and deceived.
John Irving
Image
… but only because exhaustion is a life-sign it is at least a form of being human.
John Irving
Image
The main character and the most important character are not always the same person - you have to know the difference.
John Irving
Image
Rituals are comforting rituals combat loneliness.
John Irving
Image
There is no straightforward negotiation with a four year old.
John Irving
Image
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
Image
I believe in rules of behavior, and I'm quite interested in stories about the consequences of breaking those rules.
John Irving
Image
He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson
John Irving
Image
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
Image
There's nothing as scary as the future.
John Irving
Image
Everyone has a right to be a little happy, asshole.
John Irving
Image
You don't have to be in the habit of going to church to listen to such a literary minister you don't have to be a believer to be moved by Mr. Buechner's faith.
John Irving
Image
Everybody dies … The thing is, to have a life before we die.
John Irving
Image
Your memory is a monster you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory but it has you!
John Irving