Ted Seabrooke, my wrestling coach, had a kind of Nietzschean effect on me in terms of not just his estimation of my limited abilities, but his decidedly philosophical stance about how to conduct your life, what you should do to compensate for your limitations. This was essential to me, both as a student - and not a good one - and as a wrestler who was not a natural athlete but who had found something he loved.
John IrvingYou know, everybody dies. My parents died. Your father died. Everybody dies. I'm going to die too. So will you. The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a life
John IrvingIf you don't feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn't very vital.
John IrvingIt seems to me that people who donโt learn as easily as others suffer from a kind of learning disabilityโthere is something different about the way they comprehend unfamiliar materialโbut I fail to see how this disability is improved by psychiatric consultation. What seems to be lacking is a technical ability that those of us called โgood studentsโ are born with. Someone should concretely study these skills and teach them. What does a shrink have to do with the process?
John IrvingDan suggested to Owen and me that we were better off to not involve ourselves with Hester. How true! But how we wanted to be involved in the thrilling real-life sleaziness that we suspected Hester was in the thick-of. We were in a phase, through television and the movies, of living only vicariously. Even faintly sordid silliness excited us if it put us in contact with love.
John Irving