Quote

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

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John Irving
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 2
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Exeter
New Hampshire
John Winslow Irving
Life
Bears
Beings
Second
Father
Hotels
Firsts
Illusions
Human
Hotel
Humans
Survive
First
Illusion

More quotes by John Irving

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. . .There are moments when time does stop. We must be alert enough to notice such moments . . .
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The more clearly one sees this world the more one is obliged to pretend it does not exist.
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All men are liars, said Roberta Muldoon, who knew this was true because she had once been a man.
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Keep passing the open windows.
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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.
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A personal injustice is stronger motivation than any instinct for philanthropy.
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Nothing moves at the Hotel New Hampshire! We're screwed down here-for life!
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Patriotism is not necessarily defined as blind devotion to a president's particular agenda - and that to dispute a presidential policy is not necessarily anti-American.
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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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… and so he tried to accept the ache in his heart as what Dr. Larch would call the common symptoms of normal life.
John Irving
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It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.
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I have pretty thick skin, and I think if you're going to be in this business, if you're going to be an actor or a writer, you better have a thick skin.
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I'm not at all contemporary, not even modern, and the fact that I would be so quaintly attracted to that wrestling rule makes me, I suppose, seem all the more old-fashioned. I believe in rules of behavior, and I'm quite interested in stories about the consequences of breaking those rules.
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…there is no nakedness that compares to being naked in front of someone for the first time.
John Irving
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The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything.
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(Baseball) is a game with a lot of waiting in it it is a game with increasingly heightened anticipation of increasingly limited action
John Irving
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You can't learn everything you need to know legally.
John Irving
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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.
John Irving
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The main character and the most important character are not always the same person - you have to know the difference.
John Irving
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The object of war is to survive it.
John Irving