John Irving Quotes

If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.
John Irving

Courage, Life, Love

I think the sport of wrestling, which I became involved with at the age of 14... I competed until I was 34, kind of old for a contact sport. I coached the sport until I was 47. I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline I have to write.
John Irving

Age, Old, Write

If you presume to love something, you must love the process of it much more than you love the finished product.
John Irving

Love, Process, Finished

You can't learn everything you need to know legally.
John Irving

Legal, Everything, Learn

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!
John Irving

Forget, Away, Memory

And I find - I'm 63, and my capacity to be by myself and just spend time by myself hasn't diminished any. That's the necessary part of being a writer, you better like being alone.
John Irving

Time, Alone, Find

I do know where I'm going and it's just a matter of finding the language to get there.
John Irving

Matter, Language, Finding

I have pretty thick skin, and I think if you're going to be in this business, if you're going to be an actor or a writer, you better have a thick skin.
John Irving

Business, Pretty, Actor

I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand.
John Irving

Writing, Written, Drafts

More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn't say I have a talent that's special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina.
John Irving

Life, Special, Talent

I take people very seriously. People are all I take seriously, in fact. Therefore, I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave - and nothing but laughter to console them with.
John Irving

Sympathy, Laughter, Nothing

I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the story.
John Irving

Time, Character, Story

You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.
John Irving

Half my life is an act of revision.
John Irving

Life, Act, Half

I have a very poor record at multiple choice questions.
John Irving

Poor, Choice, Questions

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.
John Irving

Family, Nice, Perfect

And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.
John Irving

Important, Put, Place

Good habits are worth being fanatical about.
John Irving

Good, Worth, Habits

I don't begin a novel or a screenplay until I know the ending. And I don't mean only that I have to know what happens. I mean that I have to hear the actual sentences. I have to know what atmosphere the words convey.
John Irving

Mean, Words, Until

I had been a student in Vienna, and one of the neat little things I had found out was about that zoo. It was a good debut novel for me to have published. I was 26 or 27 when it was published. I already had a kid and would soon have a second.
John Irving

Good, Student, Found

I never know when I finish the novel I am writing which will be the next novel out of the station.
John Irving

Writing, Next, Novel

I suppose I'm proudest of my novels for what's imagined in them. I think the world of my imagination is a richer and more interesting place than my personal biography.
John Irving

Place, Personal, Biography

If I have any advantage, maybe, as a writer, it is that I don't think I'm very interesting. I mean, beginning a novel with the last sentence is a pretty plodding way to spend your life.
John Irving

Life, Mean, Pretty

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.
John Irving

Old, Wrong, Used

No adult in my family would ever tell me anything about who my father was. I knew from an older cousin - only four years older than I am - everything, or what little I could discover about him.
John Irving

Family, Father, Everything

Share with your Friends

Everyone likes a good quote - don't forget to share.

Biography

Nationality: American

Born: March 2, 1942

Links

Find on Amazon: John Irving

Cite this Page: Citation

Popular Topics

Friendship Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

Related Authors

Ernest Hemingway
Richard Bach
Chuck Palahniuk
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Gore Vidal
Amelia Barr
Isaac Bashevis Singer
H. P. Lovecraft
More

Get Social with BrainyQuote

BrainyQuote Desktop

BrainyQuote Mobile

Site

Quote of the Day

Social

BQ on Pinterest

Syndication

Funny Quote Feed

Love Quote Feed

Nature Quote Feed

About Us