You don't want to dwell on your enemies, you know. I basically feel so superior to my critics for the simple reason that they haven't done what I do. Most book reviewers haven't written 11 novels. Many of them haven't written one.
John IrvingGrant us safe lodging, and holy rest,โ Mrs. Grogan was saying, โand peace at last.โ Amen, thought Wilbur Larch, the Saint of St. Cloudโs, who was seventy-something, and an ether addict, and who felt that heโd come a long way and still had a long way to go.
John IrvingI think now that is the nature of hymns-they make us want to repeat them...they are a part of any service, and often the only part of a funeral service, that makes us feel everything is acceptable.
John IrvingI try to see the whole woman,' Eddie said to Hannah. 'Of course I recognize that she's old, but there are photographs - or the equivalent of photographs in one's imagination of anyone's life. A whole life, I mean. I can picture her when she was much younger than I am - because there are always gestures and expressions that are ingrained, ageless. An old woman doesn't see herself as an old woman, and neither do I. I try to see her her whole life in her. There's something so moving about someone's whole life.
John IrvingHere is the trap you are in.... And it's not my trapโI haven't trapped you. Because abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and youโbecause you know how to perform themโhave no choice, either. What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman's freedom of choice, too. If abortion was legal, a woman would have a choiceโand so would you. You could feel free not to do it because someone else would. But the way it is, you're trapped. Women are trapped. Women are victims, and so are you.
John Irving