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.
Quotes to Explore
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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.
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Cuba needs a dose of perestroika.
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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.
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I have a strong upper body; I'm an arms swimmer, and I always have been.
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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.
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I keep in touch with what's real.
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National armies fight nations, royal armies fight their like, the first obey a mob, always demented and the second a king, generally sane.
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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.
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You ask any person in the U.S. and they know who Mary Lou Retton is.
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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.
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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.
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My mother giving birth to me was just like Lady Sybil giving birth, except that there wasn't such a tragic ending.
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Insults are the business of the court.
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From the moment I walked into the White House, it was as if I had no privacy at all.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
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If a father commands a son to commit a crime so terrible that the son can't do it and live with himself, then is it betrayal for the son to disobey his father?
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Time is change; we measure its passing by how much things alter.
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It is a long revisionist road up from the bottom for George W. Bush. He is ranked toward the bottom rung of presidents.
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I live in Vegas, and I see people by the side of the road with cardboard signs who seem like they might have tried that spending their way out of debt thing.
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Giving is only one-half of the law of increase. Receiving is the other half. We can give and give but we may unbalance the law unless we also expect to receive.
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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.
