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All John Irving Quotes
There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep.
John Irving
61% of people like this quote
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
58% of people like this quote
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
57% of people like this quote
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
55% of people like this quote
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
54% of people like this quote
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
54% of people like this quote
Sometimes that's a year, sometimes it's 18 months, where all I'm doing is taking notes. I'm reconstructing the story from the back to the front so that I know where the front is.
John Irving
52% of people like this quote
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
52% of people like this quote
The building of the architecture of a novel - the craft of it - is something I never tire of.
John Irving
51% of people like this quote
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