John Irving Quotes

“You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do—and they don’t. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don’t want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who’s the bore of all time. A lot of the people whose work they’ve taught in the schools for the last thirty years, I can’t understand why people read them and why they are taught. The library, on the other hand, has no biases. The information is all there for you to interpret. You don’t have someone telling you what to think. You discover it for yourself.”
― Ray Bradbury

“Ruth sabía que era afortunada. Se dijo que su próxima novela debería tratar de la buena suerte, de cómo la buena suerte y el infortunio se distribuyen de una manera desigual, si no al nacer, por lo menos a medida que se dan las circunstancias sobre las que no tenemos control alguno, así como los acontecimientos que entran en colisión: la gente que conocemos, el momento en que ese conocimiento tiene lugar y si esas personas importantes podrían conocer casualmente a otras, y el momento en que podría suceder tal cosa.”
― John Irving, A Widow for One Year

“In short,I might take seriously the idea of service to my country when my country begins to demonstrate that it gives a shit about me!”
― John Irving, In One Person

“There are authors I truly enjoy to read, like John Irving and Don Delillo and Vollman and Hubert Selby Jr. and Hunter S. Thompson. And then there are writers that, while I enjoy their work, I read as a challenge to myself, to sharpen my knives, like Goethe or Genet or Faulkner or Joyce or Salinger. And I have a terrible weakness for music biographies. They are the best books to take on the road. I don't even have to like the band to enjoy the book. Want a wonderful literary anecdote? And watch your toes, because I'm dropping names like bricks. My favorite book of all time is Among The Dead by Michael Tolkin. Wonderful, dark, funny book.”
― Sammy Winston