John Irving Quotes

It's not very interesting to establish sympathy for people who, on the surface, are instantly sympathetic. I guess I'm always attracted to people who, if their lives were headlines in a newspaper, you might not be very sympathetic about them.

John Irving

• People
• Interesting
• Sympathy

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Quotes to Explore

• I took my acting very seriously. I did over 40 films, and naturally, some of them were called B-movies because the woman was at the top of the billing. Women couldn't star in their own movies.

  

  Mamie Van Doren
  • Women
  • Star
  • Woman

• Cuba needs a dose of perestroika.

  

  Carlos Fuentes
  • Needs
  • Cuba
  • Dose

• If you have not been a villain at a certain point in time, you will never be a hero. And the day you are a hero, you may become a villain the next day.

  

  Carlos Ghosn
  • Time
  • May
  • Day

• I have a strong upper body; I'm an arms swimmer, and I always have been.

  

  Natalie du Toit
  • Strong
  • Always
  • Body

• From inside where I live, I feel like I just perceive events in a certain rational way. I often find it sad or poignant, and it may not make me laugh a bit. But I don't mind inventing a portrait that allows others to laugh if that's what they want to do.

  

  Madeline Kahn
  • Live
  • Mind
  • May

• I keep in touch with what's real.

  

  Sam Claflin
  • Real
  • Keep
  • Touch

• National armies fight nations, royal armies fight their like, the first obey a mob, always demented and the second a king, generally sane.

  

  J. F. C. Fuller
  • Always
  • King
  • Fight

• My reasons for declaring a sexual preference had to do less with the pursuit of personal freedom than with the lust for pure shock value.

  

  Lance Loud
  • Freedom
  • Value
  • Lust

• You ask any person in the U.S. and they know who Mary Lou Retton is.

  

  Nastia Liukin
  • You
  • Know
  • Person

• I like it when I am in the middle; I am closer to the ball. The manager wants me to pass, to make assists, create chances, and I do more because I think the position is more central, and I don't ask all the time for the ball at my feet.

  

  Eden Hazard
  • Ball
  • Middle
  • Chances

• What doesn't feel okay to me, what feels a little bit out of balance, is when you want to turn yourself into something else – when you want to be another person.

  

  Zoe Saldana
  • Person
  • Feel
  • Balance

• My mother giving birth to me was just like Lady Sybil giving birth, except that there wasn't such a tragic ending.

  

  Jack Whitehall
  • Mother
  • Giving
  • Ending

• Insults are the business of the court.

  

  Naguib Mahfouz
  • Business
  • Court
  • Insults

• From the moment I walked into the White House, it was as if I had no privacy at all.

  

  Nancy Reagan
  • House
  • Moment
  • White

• My favourite all-time work of fiction: Lord of the Rings. My favourite all-time nonfiction book: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Ask me again next week, you'll get a different answer.

  

  Orson Scott Card
  • Time
  • Work
  • Different

• The more you stay with and/or complain about a toxic person, the more you're merely delaying doing the important inner work you need to do - to heal your wounds, expand your limiting beliefs, and show yourself far more love and respect.

  

  Karen Salmansohn
  • Work
  • Important
  • Love

• Anybody who's spent thirteen or fourteen years in print journalism has a lot of stories he thinks were inwardly satisfying as far as preparation, understanding, and diligence.

  

  Walter Cronkite
  • Understanding
  • Preparation
  • Journalism

• Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

  

  Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Great
  • Nothing
  • Enthusiasm

• Japanese people today think of money, just money: Where is our national spirit today? The Jieitai must be the soul of Japan. … The nation has no spiritual foundation. That is why you don’t agree with me. You will just be American mercenaries. There you are in your tiny world. You do nothing for Japan. … I salute the Emperor. Long live the emperor!

  

  Yukio Mishima
  • People
  • World
  • Long

• Unless you have a long-running series, most actors just go job to job if you're lucky to keep working. You just do a movie or a play or a TV thing, and it's over at some point.

  

  Gary Sinise
  • Long
  • Job
  • Movie

• I love that pre-mod jazz look of the late Fifties, the Steve McQueen style that influenced the British modernists.

  

  Martin Freeman
  • Style

• Teach us almighty father, to consider this solemn truth, as we should do, that we may feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes.

  

  Jane Austen
  • Truth
  • Father
  • Solemn

• It's not very interesting to establish sympathy for people who, on the surface, are instantly sympathetic. I guess I'm always attracted to people who, if their lives were headlines in a newspaper, you might not be very sympathetic about them.

  

  John Irving
  • People
  • Interesting
  • Sympathy