John Irving Quotes
On his process for writing novels: I can't imagine what the first sentence is, I can't imagine where I want the reader to enter the story, if I don't know where the reader is going to leave the story. So once I know what the last thing the reader hears is, I can work my way backward, like following a roadmap in reverse.
Quotes to Explore
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Maybe 10 times a year I'll do a corporate date, but no casinos or no nightclubs or no comedy clubs.
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I think studies are really important and shouldn't be compromised.
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Never stand still. Only stand still enough to learn, and once you stop learning in that stance, move off. Always keep yourself engaged, in theater, in whatever job you can get. If you can't get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets. But be around actors because that is where you will primarily learn.
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Some people ask, 'How do you attract the young and so many different people when your poetry is complicated and different?' I say, 'My accomplishment is that my readers trust me and accept my suggestions for change.'
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I'm the complete opposite of every clean cut, decent-looking guy you could ever think of. Yet, I have the biggest heart in the world.
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I don't like going to the gym because I don't like being with people I don't know in that intense environment.
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The environmental movement, like all political processes, reacts best to disasters. But these are very slow, very gradual disasters in the making.
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In the search for culpability for the tragedy in Ferguson, I mostly blame politicians.
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Certainly our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters need to be supported in living out their call to holiness.
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There aren't a whole lot of things I want out of life. My bucket list is extremely short: Achieve the success in the industry I want, and get married. If I achieve both of those, I can die completely stoked. I don't need anything else.
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We cannot rest until we make sure that our families can afford to live and raise their kids here, that our seniors can remain in their homes and afford their health and pharmaceutical costs.
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I personally don't think ginger men have a habit of being attractive. We have to make ourselves seem attractive by doing stuff.
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Embrace the grease, if any, and look fresh and human. I like to look like a glazed doughnut.
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I don't wear plaid shirts.
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There's a big difference between being privileged and being spoilt. My parents always said, 'Spoilt means ruined, and you're not ruined, just incredibly fortunate.'
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I am fairly classless because it is very difficult to class someone who comes from a mixed marriage.
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I don't know how anyone could stop working.
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I don't know if I would call myself a religious human.
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It doesn't happen every day, but many nights my dreams are like a movie. I don't see normal movement - I see things in very complicated shots. That's why I do remember many of them.
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I never admire another's fortune so much that I became dissatisfied with my own.
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My work as an artist is completely separate from my work as a philanthropist.
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I didn't have big movie offers, or any big agents wanting to work with me. I had to go grassroots, start at the bottom and go on 150 auditions before someone finally gave me a shot.
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As a piece of literacy criticism, Freud's best writing is about Dostoyevsky. It's a kind of displaced literacy criticism.
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On his process for writing novels: I can't imagine what the first sentence is, I can't imagine where I want the reader to enter the story, if I don't know where the reader is going to leave the story. So once I know what the last thing the reader hears is, I can work my way backward, like following a roadmap in reverse.
