Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.

No one but me ever put a hand on me to feel that baby. No one wanted to put his ear against it and listen...You shouldn't have a baby if there's no one who wants to feel it kick or listen to it move.

All men are liars, said Roberta Muldoon, who knew this was true because she had once been a man.

Life," Garp wrote, "is sadly not structured like a good old-fashioned novel. Instead an end occurs when those who are meant to peter out have petered out. All that is left is memory. But even a nihilist has memory.

Kids are perfect people till grownups get their hands on them.

The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life led by human beings; the second was that human beings could survive a life in hotels.

More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn't say I have a talent that's special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina.