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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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 a Brazilian before I am an architect. I cannot separate the two.
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And it's a lot harder to hide with four musicians than it is with eight.
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Copywriters on Madison Avenue constantly grapple with the question of where their work sits on the totem pole of 'real' writing.
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I'm quite calm when all is well.
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The battle was first waged over the right of the Negro to be classed as a human being with a soul; later, as to whether he had sufficient intellect to master even the rudiments of learning; and today it is being fought out over his social recognition.
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I commend Chris Brown and Soulja Boy for going out there for so many years and entertaining the people.
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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.
