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
believe writing should
I'm not proselytizing my method. I don't believe that one writer should tell other writers how to write.
kids age stories
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.
worst-case-scenario stories kind
I'm a worst-case scenario person. I'm only interested in a story because I kind of go, like a magnet, to the worst thing that can happen.
character giving people
You don't want to be ungenerous toward people who give you prizes, but it is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel. I begin with an interest in a relationship, a situation, a character.
aftermath construction fronts
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.
voice knowing finals
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.
running country religious
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.
judging tolerance superiors
All I say is: Let us leave les folles alone; let's just leave them be. Don't judge them. You are not superior to them - don't put them down.
hurt deceiving deceived
It's not right to hurt or deceive someone who's already been hurt and deceived.
matter gender whole
Gender mattered a whole lot less to Shakespeare than it seems to matter to us.
memories nihilist ends
Life," Garp wrote, "is sadly not structured like a good old-fashioned novel. Instead an end occurs when those who are meant to peter out have petered out. All that is left is memory. But even a nihilist has memory.
basketball wrestling weekend
I don’t have to say to you or anyone in our WRESTLING community that we are a small world unto ourselves and there is often a big difference in how much we love and understand each other and how little we’re understood or appreciated by people who spend their weekends watching basketball.
abortion choices freedom-of-choice
What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman's freedom of choice, too.
abortion choices needs
Because abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and you-because you know how to perform them-have no choice, either