She sat keenly white and still among them, a witness to everything--maybe determining nothing, possibly judging it all.
John IrvingI feel more a part of the wrestling community than I feel I belong to the community of arts and letters. Why? Because wrestling requires even more dedication than writing because wrestling represents the most difficult and rewarding objective that I have ever dedicated myself to; because wrestling and wrestling coaches are among the most disciplined and self-sacrificing people I have ever known.
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 IrvingAll I say is: Let us leave les folles alone; let's just leave them be. Don't judge them. You are not superior to them - don't put them down.
John Irvingso my grandmother was not without humanity. and if she wore cocktail dresses when she labored in the garden, they were cocktail dresses she no longer intended to wear to cocktail parties. even in her rose garden she did not want to appear underdressed. if the dresses got too dirty from gardening, she threw them out. when my mother suggested to her that she might have them cleaned, my grandmother said, "what? and have those people at the cleaners what i was doing in a dress to make it that dirty?" from my grandmother i learned that logic is relative.
John Irving