John Irving
John Irving
John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 March 1942
CountryUnited States of America
empty humbling novel page time written
One of the humbling things about having written more than one novel is the sense that every time you begin, that new empty page does not know who you are.
imagined novels proudest suppose
I suppose I'm proudest of my novels for what's imagined in them,
existed orphanages orphans
Do you really want to go back to those times when orphanages existed and when many orphans were not adopted?
coincidence young novel
He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.
losing-control feels humiliating
If 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.
intellectual belief kind
Never confuse faith, or belief—of any kind—with something even remotely intellectual.
psychology obsession obsessed
You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.
coward looks appearance
Being afraid you'll look like a coward is the worst reason for doing anything.
generosity habit good-habits
Good habits are worth being fanatical about.
umpires surfing novelists
Sigmund Freud was a novelist with a scientific background. He just didn't know he was a novelist. All those damn psychiatrists after him, they didn't know he was a novelist either.
cancer real reading
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.
doe moments enough
. . .There are moments when time does stop. We must be alert enough to notice such moments . . .
disappointment successful people
Like many successful people he made good use of disappointments - responding to them with energy, with near-frenzied activity, rather than needing to recover from them.