Quotes by John Irving

If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.

— John Irving

Love

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

Wisdom

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

I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

— John Irving

Wisdom

If you presume to love something, you must love the process of it much more than you love the finished product.

— John Irving

Love

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

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

Wisdom

I take people very seriously. People are all I take seriously, in fact. Therefore, I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave - and nothing but laughter to console them with.

— John Irving

Wisdom

With every book, you go back to school. You become a student. You become an investigative reporter. You spend a little time learning what it's like to live in someone else's shoes.

— John Irving

Education

As many times as I've seen 'The Merchant of Venice,' I always take Shylock's side. For all the hatred that guy is shown, he has a reason to hate in return. He's treated cruelly. And it's tragic that he learns to be intolerant because of what others do to him.

— John Irving

Education

My old coach used to say that if you were in it for the match, if you were in it for the trophies, you were in it for the wrong reasons.

— John Irving

Wisdom

To each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread. We were just a family. In a family even exaggerations make perfect sense.

— John Irving

Wisdom

Good habits are worth being fanatical about.

— John Irving

Wisdom

You can't learn everything you need to know legally.

— John Irving

Education

And I find - I'm 63, and my capacity to be by myself and just spend time by myself hasn't diminished any. That's the necessary part of being a writer, you better like being alone.

— John Irving

Wisdom

Titles are important; I have them before I have books that belong to them. I have last chapters in my mind before I see first chapters, too. I usually begin with endings, with a sense of aftermath, of dust settling, of epilogue.

— John Irving

Wisdom

I believe in rules of behavior, and I'm quite interested in stories about the consequences of breaking those rules.

— John Irving

Wisdom

Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.

— John Irving

Wisdom

I'm not writing non-fiction. I don't feel anything about me as a kid was unique. Except that I had more interest in being alone and using my imagination.

— John Irving

Wisdom

Half my life is an act of revision.

— John Irving

Life

I think that writers are, at best, outsiders to the society they inhabit. They have a kind of detachment, or try to have.

— John Irving

Wisdom

I do know where I'm going and it's just a matter of finding the language to get there.

— John Irving

Wisdom

I have a very poor record at multiple choice questions.

— John Irving

Wisdom

I have pretty thick skin, and I think if you're going to be in this business, if you're going to be an actor or a writer, you better have a thick skin.

— John Irving

Wisdom