John Irving Quotes
You don't want to be ungenerous toward people who give you prizes, but it is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel. I begin with an interest in a relationship, a situation, a character.
Quotes to Explore
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Thousands of years and many civilizations have defined a marriage as the union between one man and one woman. With few exceptions, those civilizations that did not follow that perished.
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Writers have an opinion about the world and offer arguments about the world. They should offer contemplation.
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I am going to change the world, and I'm talking to everybody in the possible world that I can get to that can help me to do that.
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Gun owners and non-gun owners alike agree on expanding background checks, making gun trafficking a serious crime with stiff penalties, making it illegal for all stalkers and all domestic abusers to buy guns, and expanding mental health resources so the mentally ill find it easier to receive treatment than to buy firearms.
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It is the original idea that is unique, not the object itself.
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What about Broadway? Yes, I'm involved with a new musical based on 'The Adams Family.'
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I wrote The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God in five hours, but I had it all planned out. It isn't poetry and it does not pretend to be, but it does what it sets out to do.
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The first time I worked with colors was by making these mosaics of Pantone swatches. They end up being very large pictures, and I photographed with a very large camera - an 8x10 camera. So you can see the surface of every single swatch - like in this picture of Chuck Close. And you have to walk very far to be able to see it.
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There was a long time where I was an 'artist' in quotes, who had no money. But I guess back then I also never had a girlfriend.
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They all hope I will go broke and I wouldn't like to cause them displeasure.
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Possessions. The very word is potent - suggestive as it is of ownership both material and erotic. To possess. Possession. Possessed.
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The hijab is a symbol that we wear on our heads, but I want people to know that it is my choice. I'm doing it because I want to do it. I wanted people to see that you could still be really cute and modest at the same time.
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If India has to achieve exponential growth, it would have to be on the back of strong growth in the manufacturing sector.
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When I was a kid, 'Blade Runner' was my favorite movie. I remember seeing that when I was a little boy with my dad.
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As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excuse me or assure me I wasn't the only one, that might confirm an identity I was unhappily piecing together.
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A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.
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Conflict is the beginning of consciousness.
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I never studied fashion design.
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One of the things I write about a bit in my Madam Secretary memoir is on Rwanda, where I was an instructed ambassador at the U.N., and my instructions were to not vote for increased forces there, and I didn't like my instructions. So I got up and called Washington and said, "Change my instructions," and they didn't.
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Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking.
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At night I dream that you and I are two plants that grew together, roots entwined, and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth, since we are made of earth and rain.
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Nationalism in Norway was very strong in 1905, that we must be free of Sweden. But I must say, I'm not 100 percent sure that was a wise decision. We had the war; we were occupied by Germans from 1940 to '45. And if there had been one Scandinavian country, then it would not have been so very easy probably to go ahead with the occupation.
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You don't want to be ungenerous toward people who give you prizes, but it is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel. I begin with an interest in a relationship, a situation, a character.
