When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long timeโthe way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comesโwhen there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's gone, foreverโthere comes another day, and another specifically missing part.
John IrvingThe book works better if I know everything I can about the ending. Not just what happens, but how it happens and what the language is; not just the last sentence, but enough of the sentences surrounding that last sentence to know what the tone of voice is. I imagined it as something almost musical. Then you are writing toward something; you know the sound of your voice at the end of the story. That's how you want to sound in those final sentences: the degree that it is uplifting or not, the degree that it is melancholic or not.
John IrvingThere's a lot of ignorance about how long it takes to write a novel. There's a lot of ignorance about how long a novel is in your head before you start to write it.
John IrvingYou know, everybody dies. My parents died. Your father died. Everybody dies. I'm going to die too. So will you. The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a life
John Irving