John Irving Quotes
I suppose I'm proudest of my novels for what's imagined in them. I think the world of my imagination is a richer and more interesting place than my personal biography.
Quotes to Explore
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It's expected of novels that they should explain the world and create the illusion that things are ultimately logical and coherent. But that's not what I see around me. Often, events remain mysterious and unresolved, and our emotions reach no catharsis.
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Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.
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We lived in Atlanta for a couple of years, and had a lot of fun, but my best work happens when I isolate myself. It's all about turning inward.
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I've been told I'm a little bit eccentric.
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It is important to be well read, at least a little bit.
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Of course, as consumers, we want cheap and good products; however, if these production processes are exceeding wastewater discharge standards and even causing heavy metal pollution, they will cause long-lasting damage to the ecological environment and public health.
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For me, writing a song, I sit down and the process doesn't really involve me thinking about the demographic of people I'm trying to hit or who I want to be able to relate to the song or what genre of music it falls under.
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The collusion of big business, big labor, and big government threaten the spirit of small business that makes America great.
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Tom Brokaw was never young.
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You should never do anything too much. If you only eat healthy food, that is too much. Success is balance - a banker with no time with his kids, he's not successful. If he doesn't have time to walk his kids to school, that is not success - that is a mistake.
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Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
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After I win a match, I celebrate it by having an ice cream.
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For every person who has ever lived there has come, at last, a spring he will never see. Glory then in the springs that are yours.
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I always wanted to be a writer. Maybe, had I been brought up in another generation, I might have just gone into writing rather than medicine - which is not to say that I didn't also have a great attraction towards the idea of being a healer. Fortunately, I've been able to combine the two in ways I could never possibly have imagined.
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The progress of India is the destiny of one-sixth of humanity. And it will also mean a world more confident of its prosperity and more secure about its future.
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Without understanding yourself, what is the use of trying to understand the world?
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If money was being invented now, it wouldn't be designed to look like cash or credit cards. It would look more like Bitcoin.
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I have always thought that writers come with any variety of attributes. Some are capable and some aren't.
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Since I can barely write two books a year the best solution seems to be co-author projects. My goal isn't to get another writer to clone me... it's more to produce a book that shares my vision of positive, fun entertainment.
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Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men's language. Of course women learn it. We're not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man's world, so it talks a man's language.
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Half the trouble in the world arises from men trying to anticipate their time and season, and the other half from their trying to prolong them.
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How can I ever miss you when you never go away?
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All you have to do is to dream big and try to fulfil it.
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I suppose I'm proudest of my novels for what's imagined in them. I think the world of my imagination is a richer and more interesting place than my personal biography.
