The main character and the most important character are not always the same person - you have to know the difference.

Maybe 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.

There's nothing as scary as the future.

A truly happy woman drives some men and almost every other woman absolutely crazy

Never confuse faith, or belief — of any kind — with something even remotely intellectual.

With every book, you go back to school. You become a student. You become an investigative reporter. You spend a little time learning what it's like to live in someone else's shoes.

Half my life is an act of revision.