John Irving quotes

John Irving is an American novelist and screenwriter, widely recognized for his imaginative storytelling and complex characters. His works often explore themes such as family, fate, and the search for identity. He has received numerous awards and remains a major figure in contemporary literature. Here are 139 of his quotes:

Never confuse faith, or belief - of any kind - with something even remotely intellectual. (John Irving)
Your memory is a monster; you forget-it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you-and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you! View quote
John Irving
You can't learn everything you need to know legally. View quote
John Irving
Sigmund Freud was a novelist with a scientific background. He just didn't know he was a novelist. All those damn psychiatrists after him, they didn't know he was a novelist either. View quote
John Irving
You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed. View quote
John Irving
To each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread, we were just a family. In a family even exaggerations make perfect sense. View quote
John Irving
Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties. View quote
John Irving
He wrote Helen that "a part of adolescence is feeling that there's no one else around you who's enough like yourself to understand you." View quote
John Irving
Ted Seabrooke, my wrestling coach, had a kind of Nietzschean effect on me in terms of not just his estimation of my limited abilities, but his decidedly philosophical stance about how to conduct your life, what you should do to compensate for your limitations. This was essential to me, both as a student-and not a good one-and as a wrestler who was not a natural athlete but who had found something he loved. View quote
John Irving
Imagining something is better than remembering something. View quote
John Irving
Life is serious but art is fun! (John Irving)
Life forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can. View quote
John Irving
Good habits are worth being fanatical about. View quote
John Irving
In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases. View quote
John Irving
Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean-make sure they know what they mean! View quote
John Irving
Religious freedom should work two ways: we should be free to practice the religion of our choice, but we must also be free from having someone else's religion practiced on us. View quote
John Irving
Human beings are remarkable - at what we can learn to live with. If we couldn't get strong from what we lose, and what we miss, and what we want and can't have, then we couldn't ever get strong enough, could we? What else makes us strong? View quote
John Irving
Being afraid you'll look like a coward is the worst reason for doing anything. View quote
John Irving
If you don't feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn't very vital. View quote
John Irving
Just when you begin thinking of yourself as memorable, you run into someone who can't even remember having met you. View quote
John Irving
wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn't reading. (John Irving)
When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother's hand, his fingers could see in the dark. View quote
John Irving
If you can't love crudeness, how can you truly love mankind? View quote
John Irving
Owen meany who rarely wasted words and who had the conversation-stopping habit of dropping remarks like coins into a deep pool of water... remarks that sank, like truth, to the bottom of the pool where they would remain untouchable. View quote
John Irving
It's not right to hurt or deceive someone who's already been hurt and deceived. View quote
John Irving