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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My mother 'gave teas' the way other mothers breathed. Her own mother 'gave teas.' All of their friends 'gave teas,' each involving butter cookies extruded from a metal press and pastel bonbons ordered from See's.
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You'll never get me into a tux. Not until I'm dead and I have no choice because that's what the undertaker put me in.
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I think, for the benefit of our parents, the perfect night out would be when Cate and I touch the wall and we tie. This is what they dream - that we'll both win. Because then they don't have to pick a favourite child.
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It was hard to turn down the money since I didn't have a job, but I didn't want to exploit my notoriety because I knew the way I'd been living was wrong.
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The fact that the Bush administration, and those in Europe who have followed its 9/11-inspired agenda, somehow believe that the future of the world is being played out in the Middle East and Central Asia rather than East Asia has only served to accelerate China's rise and the U.S.'s decline.
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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.