John Irving Quotes
My old coach used to say that if you were in it for the match, if you were in it for the trophies, you were in it for the wrong reasons.
Quotes to Explore
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Memorising my lines is actually something I do fairly well. I look at it a few times and it is pretty much there. When your shooting on TV, they do it in such a way that it is pretty easy.
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I usually get my stuff from people who promised somebody else that they would keep it a secret.
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The hardest thing about being an unpublished writer is that there's always that voice in your head that asks if you're really being a fool. You might just really stink and not know it. You have to have a lot of blind faith in the process. You have to like it so much that you're going to do it anyway.
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In America, the stories we tell ourselves and we tell each other in fiction have to do with individualism. Every person here is the center of his or her own story. And our job as people and as characters is to find our own motivations and desires, to overcome conflicts and obstacles toward defining ourselves so that we grow and change.
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Every company has two organizational structures: The formal one is written on the charts; the other is the everyday relationship of the men and women in the organization.
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I won't be in gay parades - I don't think they need them. I believe in class - I believe that people should have a bit of class about them.
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For a startup, you need to stay small so the others don't attack, or you aim to be one of the big guys. If you don't do it right, you might lose everything.
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The sadness of the incomplete, the sadness that is often Life, but should never be Art.
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The first thing I do whenever I go to Thailand is seek out the closest restaurant or stall selling mango-and-sticky rice: it's a little hillock of glutinous rice drenched in lashings of coconut milk and served with fresh mango.
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I love New York, and I'm drawn to a certain intensity of life, but I've just never felt like I want to escape from the Midwest. A writer lives a great deal in his own head, and so one intuitively finds places where your head is more clear. New York for me is one of those places.
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There is no one single solution to eradicate phishing.
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This administration and these folk who run Washington are no more interested in our welfare and our well being than the man on the moon. And we have got to start taking our destiny into our hands.
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As a member of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, I am a firm believer in the American space program.
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Mainstream American society finds it easiest to be tolerant when the outsider chooses to minimize the differences that separate him from the majority. The country club opens its doors to Jews. The university welcomes African-Americans. Heterosexuals extend the privilege of marriage to the gay community.
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Though it was never a goal in life, it has occurred to me that I've met six presidents of the United States. OK, I met four of them before they became president, including Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, No. 43.
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I secretly want to be a rapper!
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Music has always been really important to me.
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Publishers have realized that, unlike the previous time period, American teenagers are both smarter and require more topical material than they had been giving them before that. For one thing, they'll read thicker books. Besides, has anybody looked at the news or read the newspapers recently?
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This living hand, now warm and capableOf earnest grasping, would, if it were coldAnd in the icy silence of the tomb,So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nightsThat thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of bloodSo in my veins red life might stream again,And thou be conscience-calm'd - see here it is -I hold it towards you.
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And for a very special group of people, we've provided their only job. I'm speaking of course of the disabled. They have stated they don't want a hand out just a hand. We are happy to give them one.
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The best thing that I bring in my live show is that it's not scripted. It's more of a conversation with my audience. And that's what people like about the show - it's very real. There are mistakes and laughter.
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My old coach used to say that if you were in it for the match, if you were in it for the trophies, you were in it for the wrong reasons.
