In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice. Not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God. I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.

Life," Garp wrote, "is sadly not structured like a good old-fashioned novel. Instead an end occurs when those who are meant to peter out have petered out. All that is left is memory. But even a nihilist has memory.

You live your life at the time you live it -- you don't have much of an overview when what's happening to you is still happening.

I certainly think Obama is the most hopeful president I've seen in the country since John Kennedy.

More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn't say I have a talent that's special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina.

He also knew that rivals are best unmanned by being ignored.