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.

but writers, Garp knew, were just observers - good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.

I'm a very old-fashioned novelist. I write 19th-century novels, where a lot of rules apply.

Human sexuality makes farcical our most serious intentions.

When 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?

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.

when however small a measure of jealousy is mixed with misunderstanding, there is always going to be trouble.