Dan 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 IrvingAll I say is: Let us leave les folles alone; let's just leave them be. Don't judge them. You are not superior to them - don't put them down.
John IrvingHe was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.
John IrvingMy dear boy, please donโt put a label on meโdonโt make me a category before you get to know me!
John IrvingWhen time passes, it's the people who knew you whom you want to see; they're the ones you can talk to. When enough time passes, what's it matter what they did to you?
John IrvingWhen someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long timeโthe way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comesโwhen there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's gone, foreverโthere comes another day, and another specifically missing part.
John Irving