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Author: John Irving
Quotes of Author: John Irving
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  1. John Irving _ The Imaginary Girlfriend

    I didn't "teach" Ron Hansen or Stephen Wright or T. Coraghessan Boyle or Susan Taylor Chehak or Allan Gurganus or Gail Harper or Kent Haruf or Robert Chibka or Douglas Unger how to write, but I hope I may have encouraged them and saved them a little time. I did nothing more for them than Kurt Vonnegut did for me, but in my case Mr. Vonnegut-and Mr. Yount and Mr. Williams-did quite a lot. I'm talking about technical blunders, the perpetration of sheer boredom, point-of-view problems, the different qualities of first-person and third-person voice, the deadening effect of exposition in dialogue, the crippling limitations of the present tense, the intrusions upon narrative momentum caused by puerile and pointless experimentation-and on and on.
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  2. John Irving _ Avenue of Mysteries

    Whoa!" cried the Crucified Christ-he looked more like the Drowned Christ at the moment, and the whoa word was a foreign-sounding one to the Spanish-speaking kindergartners. Four or five of the terrified children instantly wet their pants; one little girl shrieked so loudly that several girls and boys bit their tongues. Those kindergartners nearest the door to the bedroom bolted through the bedroom, screaming, and raced into the hall. Those children who must have believed there was no escape from the gringo Christ fell to their knees, peeing and crying, and covered their heads with their hands; one little boy hugged a little girl so hard that she bit him in the face.
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  3. John Irving _ A Prayer for Owen Meany

    Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean-- make sure they know what they mean!
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  4. John Irving _ A Prayer for Owen Meany

    Kad vam umre osoba koju volite, a vi to ne očekujete, ne gubite je odjednom. Gubite je dugo, u komadićima - baš kao što prestaje dolaziti pošta s njezinim imenom i njen miris lagano blijedi s jastuka, pa čak i s odjeće u njenom ormaru i ladicama. I baš kada dođe dan u kojem vas neki poseban komadić koji nedostaje preplavi osjećajem da je nestala zauvijek, dođe drugi dan i neki drugi poseban komadić.
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  5. John Irving _ Avenue of Mysteries

    I really like the sex in your novels," Dorothy told him. "I like how you do it." "I like it better," Miriam said to him, giving her daughter an all-knowing look. "I have the perspective to know what really bad sex is," Dorothy's mom told her. "Please, Mother-don't paint us a picture," Dorothy said.
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  6. John Irving _ Avenue of Mysteries

    When the deranged rooster crowed a third time, his crowing was cut off mid-squawk. "There, that does it," Miriam said. "No more heralding of a false dawn, no more untruthful messengers.
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  7. John Irving _ Avenue of Mysteries

    Writers who have any audience have more readers than they know. Juan Diego was more famous than he thought.
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  8. John Irving _ The World According to Garp

    But Vienna was in its death phase; it lay still and let me look at it, and think about it, and look again. In a living city, I could never have noticed so much. Living cities don't hold still.
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  9. John Irving _ Avenue of Mysteries

    Wasn't this the point Juan Diego had made repeatedly? Women readers kept fiction alive-here was another one. When Juan Diego had used Spanish in crying out the scholastic's name, the Chinese girl knew she'd been right about who he was.
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  10. John Irving _ Avenue of Mysteries

    I'm not a fortune-teller!" Lupe said, but Juan Diego didn't translate this. "The woman you want is Soledad," Vargas said to Edward Bonshaw. "What woman? I don't want a woman!" the new missionary cried; he'd imagined that Dr. Vargas had misunderstood what a vow of celibacy entailed. "Not a woman for you, Mr. Celibacy," Vargas said. "I mean the woman you need to talk to, on behalf of the kids. Soledad is the woman who looks after the kids at the circus-she's the lion tamer's wife.
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  11. John Irving _ Avenue of Mysteries

    But Brother Pepe put reading on a pedestal; he was a Jesuit because the Jesuits had made him a reader and introduced him to Jesus, not necessarily in that order. It was best not to ask Pepe if reading or Jesus had saved him, or which one had saved him more.
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  12. John Irving _ Avenue of Mysteries

    That poor girl wasn't a girl," Señor Eduardo said; he'd glanced once at Lupe, asleep in his lap, just to be sure she was still sleeping. "That poor girl was Flor,
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