My old coach used to say that if you were in it for the match, if you were in it for the trophies, you were in it for the wrong reasons.
John IrvingA novel is a piece of architecture. It's not random wallowings or confessional diaries. It's a building-it has to have walls and floors and the bathrooms have to work.
John IrvingBecause abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and you-because you know how to perform them-have no choice, either
John IrvingI have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. They are gone, and I resume the journey of my story.โ (David Copperfield) โBut all that night he lay awake because the phantoms of those days were not gone. Like the tiny, terrible holes in the prophylactics, the phantoms of those days were not easy to detectโand their meaning was unknownโbut they were there.
John Irving