John Irving Quotes
I believe you have constructive accidents en route through a novel only because you have mapped a clear way. If you have confidence that you have a clear direction to take, you always have confidence to explore other ways; if they prove to be mere digressions, you'll recognize that and make the necessary revisions.

Quotes to Explore
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I've always - honestly - never thought of myself as an independent director.
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I loved making 'The Hunger Games' - it was the happiest experience of my professional life. Lionsgate was supportive of me in a manner that few directors ever experience in a franchise: they empowered me to make the film I wanted to make and backed the movie in a way that requires no explanation beyond the remarkable results.
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There are hundreds of people running around with great voices. If they would study and develop them they could become great singers.
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I can improve it a little bit. But it's my head, it's the way I am. So at the end of the day, I will be who I am and I will win how much I can win.
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The highest duty of the man is not to his father, but to his wife; and for the sake of that woman he abandons all other earthly ties, should any of these happen to interfere with that relation.
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The World Bank can only survive if it's spending money.
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Every generation comes with a unique athlete, I don't think anybody wants to be the next Nadia; they want to be themselves.
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Fortunately there is more wealth in the world than there was at the time of the global economic crisis of 1929 - Chinese, Indian, Arab and Russian.
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Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.
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You make knowledge relevant to life and you make it important for children to learn things that will really relate to things going on in their lives, and not abstract.
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PCR made it easier to see that certain people are infected with HIV.
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I am in the infantry for 17 weeks and after that I don't know where I am going.
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If you don't know much about the field, you're able to ask a set of questions that an expert would never ask, and that allows you a very different thought process and a fresh approach.
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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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You live these three months in this reality, in this dark reality. You don't want to do those films every year because they're taxing. I started smoking a lot of cigarettes.
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Take the time today to understand your contribution to any bad event you've just been through.
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When you live in a condo complex with people next door, I don't know how you can be dead for four months without anybody noticing you not coming and going.
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In an unconstitutional partnership with the state, the church can impose the most irresistible, if covert, controls conceivable.
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It's terrifying the way molecular biology has become more and more jargon ridden. But I strongly believe that my book can be read by the intelligent layman. I want everyone who bought a copy of 'A Brief History of Time' to buy a copy of 'Genome'.
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Mind is the foundation of man.
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There is a philosophy that says that if something is unobservable -- unobservable in principle -- it is not part of science. If there is no way to falsify or confirm a hypothesis, it belongs to the realm of metaphysical speculation, together with astrology and spiritualism. By that standard, most of the universe has no scientific reality -- it's just a figment of our imaginations.
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No theory of my own will ever stand in the way of my executing, in good faith, any order I may receive from those in authority over me.
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I have had quite a few obsessive fans. They write to me and then they turn up at signings and look really sheepish. If I said 'boo' to them, they would run away. I think they maybe believe I could take over their lives and sort them out. If they saw the state of my kitchen they wouldn't think that.
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I believe you have constructive accidents en route through a novel only because you have mapped a clear way. If you have confidence that you have a clear direction to take, you always have confidence to explore other ways; if they prove to be mere digressions, you'll recognize that and make the necessary revisions.