Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.
John IrvingIf you feel strongly about people having abortions, don't have one. But we are a country - USA - that likes to be punitive. We want to restrict. It is a kind of religious fervor run amuck.
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 IrvingIn our hearts... there must abide some pity for those people who have always felt themselves to be separate from even their most familiar surroundings, those people who either are foreigners or who suffer a singular point of view that makes them feel as if theyโre foreigners - even in their native lands. In our hearts... there also abides a certain suspicion that such people need to feel set apart from their society. But people who initiate loneliness are no less lonely than those who are suddenly surprised by loneliness, nor are they undeserving of our pity.
John IrvingEver since the Christmas of 1953, I have felt that the yuletide is a special hell for those families who have suffered any loss or who must admit to any imperfection; the so-called spirit of giving can be as greedy as receiving-Christmas is our time to be aware of what we lack, of who's not home.
John Irving