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
father grandmother world
In the world according to her father, Jenny Garp knew, we must have energy. Her famous grandmother, Jenny Fields, once thought of us as Externals, Vital Organs, Absentees, and Goners. But in the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.
children real world
There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep.
opportunity one-day world
You take every opportunity given you in this world, even if you have too many opportunities. One day, the opportunities stop, you know.
character effort world
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.
world cases terminal
In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases
world doe this-world
The more clearly one sees this world; the more one is obliged to pretend it does not exist.
busy
The inshore lifeboat was very busy with 39 jobs, and the all-weather lifeboat had 11.
actual characters extent films mind movies party plots several stars
To her, ... celebrities at the party were not movie stars but the actual characters they'd played. Unfortunately, these movies had overlapped in her mind -- to the extent that she'd merged the plots of several different films into one incomprehensible epic. ...
existed orphanages orphans
Do you really want to go back to those times when orphanages existed and when many orphans were not adopted?
cast characters huge layers plot
Plot, plot and more plot. Many layers to the storytelling and a huge cast of characters that are very well developed,
fiction freedom gives great happened holds life special tyranny
I don't think I've had a very interesting life, and I feel that is a great liberation. That gives me great freedom as a fiction writer. Nothing that happened holds any special tyranny over me.
forming groups members ourselves people watch
I think better of our behaviour as individuals than I do when we see ourselves as members of a group. It's when people start forming groups that we have to watch our backs.
writer
I sometimes think that what I do as a writer is make a kind of colouring book, where all the lines are there, and then you put in the colour.
accident automobile good suddenly suppose time turns until
I suppose I try to look for those things where the world turns on you. It's every automobile accident, every accident at a party, you're having a good time until suddenly you're not.