John Irving Quotes
Anybody can do research. The plotting of the novel, writing the ending before you write anything else, which I always do - I don't know that everybody can do that. That's the hard part.
Quotes to Explore
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I was always interested in the kind of history they didn't teach you in school.
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You can't win if you don't play as a unit.
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Most of Google's home technologies have failed to catch on in a major way.
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I was a very physical child... I was a tree-climber; I was a tomboy.
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I want babies. I think I'll be a great dad.
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The four walls of paper are like a prison because every idea wants to spring out in all directions - everything is connected with everything else, sometimes more than others.
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I watch vlogs on YouTube. I watch Jenna Marbles a lot - I think she's really funny - and a lady called Daily Grace.
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I started off singing in church as a child. The sound of voices coming together, that was my first moment of touching something outside of myself.
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My reading of philosophy and history is desultory; I know so much and yet so little.
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Those boos really motivate me to make something happen.
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Your subconscious's goal is to recreate unresolved childhood issues and then hopefully mend them.
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I don't trust Santa Barbara as far as I can spit. I am afraid that if I went back there, it's possible that I could be run through their system, their judicial system, and wind up in some county jail where I could be killed and I'm not gonna take that chance.
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In my early 20s I was so miserable doing construction, I wanted something that paid money. I liked nice stuff. I liked cars and architecture, and things that cost money. I wanted to not swing a hammer, and make money... and not do stuff that was dirty. I attempted to get into comedy. I started to do stand-up, but I wasn't very good at it.
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One of my favourite exhibitions is called 'Do It,' which I co-curated with the artists Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier 21 years ago.
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I auditioned in Chicago for Juilliard and didn't get in. I was basically living in a back room of my parents' house, paying rent and not doing anything with my life. I'd like to say it was patriotic to join the Marines, but it was also that I was doing nothing honorable with my life and spending too much time at McDonald's.
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We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.
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You don't master your fear. You're not able to say, 'I'm not going to be scared.' But what you can do is say, 'OK, I'm very very scared, but I have to do this and this and this.'
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If I sit down to write a young-adult novel, then I'm going to write either to the punch-pulling expectation of what I can't do, or I'm going to go the other way and think about what can I sneak in to be 'down with the kids' - which would be excruciating.
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I am fascinated with religion or things that people believe in and question that. I think it's interesting.
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If you think only of evil, then you become pessimistic and hopeless like Freud. But if you think there is no evil, then you're just one more deluded Pollyanna.
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I don't believe that human beings are necessarily monogamous.
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You don't know this when you're young, but over time, you see that great companies are usually built at a special point in time.
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Absolute discretion is a ruthless master. It is more destructive of freedom than any of man's other inventions.
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Anybody can do research. The plotting of the novel, writing the ending before you write anything else, which I always do - I don't know that everybody can do that. That's the hard part.
