I'm not at all contemporary, not even modern, and the fact that I would be so quaintly attracted to that wrestling rule makes me, I suppose, seem all the more old-fashioned. I believe in rules of behavior, and I'm quite interested in stories about the consequences of breaking those rules.
John IrvingThe history of a city was like the history of a familyโthere is closeness and even affection, but death eventually separates everyone from each other. It is only the vividness of memory that keeps the dead alive forever; a writerโs job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as our personal memories.
John IrvingYou 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 IrvingHe had in abundance youthโs most dangerous qualities: optimism and relentlessness. He would risk everything he had to fly the plane that could carry the bomb within him.
John IrvingIf you asked me one day, I might say, "Well, sometimes I feel a little bit religious." If you asked me another day, I'd just say flat out, "No."
John IrvingSo we dream on. Thus we invent our lives. We give ourselves a sainted mother, we make our father a hero; and someoneโs older brother and someoneโs older sister โ they become our heroes too. We invent what we love and what we fear. There is always a brave lost brother โ and a little lost sister, too. We dream on and on: the best hotel, the perfect family, the resort life. And our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them.
John Irving