33 John Irving Quotes for You to Enjoy

John Irving

American Novelist

Born: Mar 2, 1942

Life Me People Think Writing You

Related authors: Elie Wiesel Ernest Hemingway H. P. Lovecraft James Baldwin John Updike Leo Rosten Nathaniel Hawthorne Richard Bach

Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you! John Irving

You Memory Will Own Think Monster Hides Simply Forget Them Your Files Away Recall Keeps Things

Of all the things you choose in life, you don't get to choose what your nightmares are. You don't pick them; they pick you. John Irving

Life You Pick Get Them Your Choose Things Nightmares

Good habits are worth being fanatical about. John Irving

Good Worth About Habits Being Fanatical Good Habits

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. John Irving

I grew up without a father, who was kept a mystery to me. There was a sense of uprootedness, things being one day here and the next day not; a sense anything could happen. Then, all of a sudden, my mother met my stepfather, and her life became happier, and my life changed, my name changed. John Irving

Life Day Me Mother Father My Life Met Sense Changed One Day Could Mystery Stepfather Name Became Without Up Being Grew Happen Anything Happier Then Next Who Sudden Her Things Here Kept

You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed. John Irving

You Stay Obsessed Got Get

There's no reason you shouldn't, as a writer, not be aware of the necessity to revise yourself constantly. John Irving

You Yourself Constantly No Reason Writer Revise Reason Aware Necessity

When I was still in prep school - 14, 15 - I started keeping notebooks, journals. I started writing, almost like landscape drawing or life drawing. I never kept a diary, I never wrote about my day and what happened to me, but I described things. John Irving

More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn't say I have a talent that's special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina. John Irving

Life Me My Life Half Strikes Say Kind More Writer Talent Unusual Than Maybe Rewriting Stamina Much Special Two-Thirds

I never wanted my kids to feel I was more interested in anything I was doing than I was in them. John Irving

Kids More Never Feel Doing Than Wanted Anything Interested Them

I don't begin a novel or a screenplay until I know the ending. And I don't mean only that I have to know what happens. I mean that I have to hear the actual sentences. I have to know what atmosphere the words convey. John Irving

Words Ending Atmosphere Only Know Until Hear Begin Screenplay Happens Mean Convey Sentences Novel Actual

I think the sport of wrestling, which I became involved with at the age of 14... I competed until I was 34, kind of old for a contact sport. I coached the sport until I was 47. I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline I have to write. John Irving

Me Age Discipline Old Think Kind Given Wrestling Write Contact Involved Until Sport Became Which Coached

No adult in my family would ever tell me anything about who my father was. I knew from an older cousin - only four years older than I am - everything, or what little I could discover about him. John Irving

So, I don't work in terms of real time. I don't work in a timely fashion. John Irving

Work Time Fashion Terms Real Timely Real Time

I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand. John Irving

Writing First Written Longhand Always Preferred Drafts

I'm not a twentieth-century novelist, I'm not modern, and certainly not postmodern. I follow the form of the nineteenth-century novel; that was the century that produced the models of the form. I'm old-fashioned, a storyteller. I'm not an analyst, and I'm not an intellectual. John Irving

Analyst Follow Postmodern Intellectual Models Modern Form Storyteller Century Produced Certainly Old-Fashioned Novel Novelist

I grew up around books - my grandmother's house, where I lived as a small child, was full of books. My father was a history teacher, and he loved the Russian novels. There were always books around. John Irving

It's not very interesting to establish sympathy for people who, on the surface, are instantly sympathetic. I guess I'm always attracted to people who, if their lives were headlines in a newspaper, you might not be very sympathetic about them. John Irving

'Great Expectations' was an important novel in my adolescence. It was very much one of those emblematic novels that made me wish I could write like that. It helped that my models as a writer were dead over a hundred years before I began to write. John Irving

Great Me Made Wish Important Before Hundred Hundred Years Those Adolescence Could Write Writer Over Like Dead Were Years Began Very Expectations Models Much Helped Novel Novels

If you're still wondering about details - how am I going to get these two to meet, or whatever - when you're writing, you can't pay proper attention to the sentences themselves. John Irving

You Writing Whatever Pay Meet Details About Proper Attention How Am Still Get Wondering Going Sentences Themselves Two

I had a particular affinity for wrestling, and it did have a lot to do with being small and being combative - and being angry. And when you're small and you don't back down, you get in a lot of fights. John Irving

Angry You Down Back Small Wrestling Had Combative Particular Lot Affinity Get Did Being Fights

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