John Irving
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.Collection: Believe
I have always believed that, in a story, if something traumatic or calamitous enough happens to a kid at a formative age, that will make him or her the adult they become.Collection: Kids
I don't begin a novel until I have written, not just the last sentence, but usually, as a result thereof, many of the surrounding final paragraphs, so that in addition to knowing what happens, I know what the voice is.Collection: Voice
I'm not proselytizing my method. I don't believe that one writer should tell other writers how to write.Collection: Believe
Just because you're sober, don't think you're a good driver, Cookie.Collection: Thinking
Everyone has a right to be a little happy, asshole.Collection: Littles
but writers, Garp knew, were just observers - good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.Collection: Behavior
When writing a novel, I'm not smart enough to know how to foreshadow something if I don't know what it is.Collection: Smart
I always thought that you could do worse than find yourself dying in the company of a devoted former student.Collection: Finding Yourself
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.Collection: Voice
I've always been slow but I'm even slower now. I'm more into the waiting, or I guess I'm more patient about the waiting.Collection: Waiting
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.Collection: Burden
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.Collection: Book
It is much easier to be flexible about where a story begins than it ever was for me to change my mind about where and how a story ended.Collection: Mind
I have a process that I seem to always, to some degree, as a writer, adhere to, but I certainly have never imposed the way I write a novel on my students. When I had students, I never said, "You should never start writing a novel until you have the last sentence." I never did that, and I wouldn't do it now, but people now seem so interested in the process [of writing fiction] that I have to constantly make it clear when I describe mine that I'm not being prescriptive. I'm not proselytizing.Collection: Writing
I still believe in getting married in churches and baptizing children. I go through those motions.Collection: Children
Before I began The Cider House Rules, I thought I wanted to write about a father-son relationship that was closer, more conflicted, and ultimately more loving, than most. Then I began to think of a relationship between an old orphanage director and an unadoptable orphan - a kid who goes out into the world and fails and keeps coming back, so that the old guy ends up with someone he's got to keep.Collection: Father
I was brought up in a community, in a family that valued such things as good manners, and I still do.Collection: Community
I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it.Collection: Believe
I'm a very old-fashioned novelist. I write 19th-century novels, where a lot of rules apply.Collection: Writing
What was even more germane was my study of the history of religion. It was one of the few things in school I was fascinated by.Collection: School
If you feel so strongly about what's on television, don't have one.Collection: Television
We permit bad taste in this country. In fact, we even encourage it - and reward it in all manner of ways.Collection: Country
It seems to me that a great deal of this type of censorship has to do with absolving parents of responsibility - parents who just plop their kids in front of the television and leave them there hour upon hour.Collection: Kids
If you feel strongly about people having abortions, don't have one.Collection: People
If you asked me one day, I might say, "Well, sometimes I feel a little bit religious." If you asked me another day, I'd just say flat out, "No."Collection: Religious
I grew up in a family where, through my teenage years, I was expected to go to church on Sunday. It wasn't terribly painful.Collection: Teenage
Ted Seabrooke, my wrestling coach, had a kind of Nietzschean effect on me in terms of not just his estimation of my limited abilities, but his decidedly philosophical stance about how to conduct your life, what you should do to compensate for your limitations. This was essential to me, both as a student - and not a good one - and as a wrestler who was not a natural athlete but who had found something he loved.Collection: Philosophical
He was one of those people things came easily to, but he did little to demonstrate that he deserved to be gifted.Collection: People
I’m not afraid, but I’m very nervous.Collection: Nervous
She was an expert at the art of sudden appearance.Collection: Art
My life as a writer consists of 1/8 talent and 7/8 discipline.Collection: Motivation
Ambition robs you of your childhood. The moment you want to become an adult—in any way—something in your childhood dies.Collection: Ambition
I always know more about the ending, even the aftermath to the ending, than I know about the beginning. And so there's a construction that works from back to front.Collection: Aftermath
Writing is hard. I learned how to work hard from wrestling, not English courses.Collection: Hard Work
What do Americans know about morality? They don't want their presidents to have penises but they don't mind if their presidents covertly arrange to support the Nicaraguan rebel forces after Congress has restricted such aid; they don't want their presidents to deceive their wives but they don't mind if their presidents deceive Congress- lie to the people and violate the people's constitution!Collection: Lying
Sell my old clothes - I'm off to heavenCollection: Clothes
I begin with an interest in a relationship, a situation, a character.Collection: Character
Homer and Candy passed by the empty and brightly lit dispensary; they peeked into Nurse Angela's empty office. Homer knew better than to peek into the delivery room when the light was on. From the dormitory, they could hear Dr. Larch's reading voice. Although Candy held tightly to his hand, Homer was inclined to hurry - in order not to miss the bedtime story.Collection: Reading
People are either attracted to the unseemly or disapproving of it, or both; yet we try to sound superior to the unseemly by pretending to be amused by it or indifferent to it.Collection: People
He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.Collection: Coincidence
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.Collection: Nice
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.Collection: Memorable
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.Collection: Running
There are always suicides among people who are unable to say what they mean.Collection: Suicide
Our memory is a monster; you forget it - it does not.Collection: Memories
The desire to never leave your side, the desire to never see you again. The desire to see your face asleep on the pillow beside my face and to see your eyes open in the morning when I lie next to you—just watching you, waiting for you to wake up.Collection: Morning
The lie, of course, is more interesting.Collection: Lying
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.Collection: Lovers