John Irving
John Irving
John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 March 1942
CountryUnited States of America
writing stories victim
Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.
order sight perspective
We often need to lose sight of our priorities in order to see them.
believe complicated novel
I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it.
regret awkward procedures
They were involved in that awkward procedure of getting to unknow each other.
falling-in-love liars stories
Know the story before you fall in love with your first sentence. If you don’t know the story before you begin the story, what kind of a storyteller are you? Just an ordinary kind, just a mediocre kind – making it up as you go along, like a common liar.
jobs memories cities
The history of a city was like the history of a family—there is closeness and even affection, but death eventually separates everyone from each other. It is only the vividness of memory that keeps the dead alive forever; a writer’s job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as our personal memories.
writing way minutes
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.
father real adventure
You know, everybody dies. My parents died. Your father died. Everybody dies. I'm going to die too. So will you. The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a life
christian easter believe
Anyone can be sentimental about the nativity; any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event; if you don’t believe in the resurrection, you’re not a believer." “If you don’t believe in Easter,” Owen Meany said. “Don’t kid yourself—Don’t call yourself a Christian.
kings maine england
Goodnight you princes of Maine, you kings of New England.
life art fun
Life is serious but art is fun!
school study
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.
crazy giving people
Crazy people made him crazy. It was as if he personally resented them giving into madness - in part, because he so frequently labored to behave sanely. When some people gave up the labor of sanity, or failed at it, Garp suspected them of not trying hard enough.
wall writing diaries
A novel is a piece of architecture. It's not random wallowings or confessional diaries. It's a building-it has to have walls and floors and the bathrooms have to work.