Grant 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 IrvingYou 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.
John IrvingMaybe television causes cancer, Garp thinks; but his real irritation is a writer's irritation: he knows that wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn't reading.
John IrvingNo touching Baby Jesus.โ โBut weโre his parents!โ proclaimed Mary Beth, who was being generous to include poor Joseph under this appellation. โMary Beth,โ Barb Wiggin said, โif you touch the Baby Jesus, Iโm putting you in a cow costume.
John IrvingI've always been interested in miracles, or the miraculous of the unexplained. I don't scoff at what makes people believe or want to believe. I think I understand the tremendous attraction of the mysteries of the church to the same degree that I understand and appreciate the frustration people feel, especially believers, with the human rule-making arm of the church, with the not-miraculous part of the church - any church.
John Irving