A part of adolescence is feelimg that there's no one else around who's enough like youself to understand you.

Life forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can.

Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.

I'm a very old-fashioned novelist. I write 19th-century novels, where a lot of rules apply.

You cannot drive with your eyes in the rear-view mirror… But dignity is difficult to maintain. Stamina requires constant upkeep. Repetition is boring. And you pay for grace.

In the world according to her father, Jenny Garp knew, we must have energy. Her famous grandmother, Jenny Fields, once thought of us as Externals, Vital Organs, Absentees, and Goners. But in the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.

Death, it seems," Garp wrote, "does not like to wait until we are prepared for it. Death is indulgent and enjoys, when it can, a flair for the dramatic.