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I Try To See The Whole Woman,' Eddie Said To Hannah. 'of Course I Recognize That She's Old, But There Are Photographs - Or The Equivalent Of Photographs In One's Imagination Of Anyone's Life. A Whole Life, I Mean. I Can Picture Her When She Was Much Younger Than I Am - Because There Are Always Gestures And Expressions That Are Ingrained, Ageless. An Old Woman Doesn't See Herself As An Old Woman, And Neither Do I. I Try To See Her Her Whole Life In Her. There's Something So Moving About Someone's Whole Life.

-John Irving

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I Try To See

John Irving

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I Try To See The Whole Woman,' Eddie Said To Hannah. 'of Course I Recognize That She's Old, But There Are Photographs - Or The Equivalent Of Photographs In One's Imagination Of Anyone's Life. A Whole Life, I Mean. I Can Picture Her When She Was Much Younger Than I Am - Because There Are Always Gestures And Expressions That Are Ingrained, Ageless. An Old Woman Doesn't See Herself As An Old Woman, And Neither Do I. I Try To See Her Her Whole Life In Her. There's Something So Moving About Someone's Whole Life.

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Sell My Old Clothes - I'm Off To Heaven

If You Are Careful,' Garp Wrote, 'if You Use Good Ingredients, And You Don't Take Any Shortcuts, Then You Can Usually Cook Something Very Good. Sometimes It Is The Only Worthwhile Product You Can Salvage From A Day; What You Make To Eat. With Writing, I Find, You Can Have All The Right Ingredients, Give Plenty Of Time And Care, And Still Get Nothing. Also True Of Love. Cooking, Therefore, Can Keep A Person Who Tries Hard Sane.

Being Afraid You'll Look Like A Coward Is The Worst Reason For Doing Anything.

Grant Us Safe Lodging, And Holy Rest,” Mrs. Grogan Was Saying, “and Peace At Last.” Amen, Thought Wilbur Larch, The Saint Of St. Cloud’s, Who Was Seventy-something, And An Ether Addict, And Who Felt That He’d Come A Long Way And Still Had A Long Way To Go.

If You Are Lucky Enough To Find A Way Of Life You Love, You Have To Find The Courage To Live It.

If You Asked Me One Day, I Might Say, "well, Sometimes I Feel A Little Bit Religious." If You Asked Me Another Day, I'd Just Say Flat Out, "no."

...i Suddenly Realized What Small Towns Are. They Are Places Where You Grow Up With The Peculiar-you Live Next Door To The Strange And The Unlikely For So Long That Everything And Everyone Become Commonplace.

Almost Everyone Is Dying To Leave Home, Eventually; And Almost Everyone Needs To.

There Was No Manifestation Of Contemporary Culture That Did Not Indicate To My Grandmother How Steadfast Was The Nation's Decline, How Merciless Our Mental And Moral Deterioration, How Swiftly All-embracing Our Final Decadence. I Never Saw Her Read A Book Again; But She Referred To Books Often - As If They Were Shrines And Cathedrals Of Learning That Television Had Plundered And Then Abandoned.

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?

No Touching Baby Jesus.” “but We’re His Parents!” Proclaimed Mary Beth, Who Was Being Generous To Include Poor Joseph Under This Appellation. “mary Beth,” Barb Wiggin Said, “if You Touch The Baby Jesus, I’m Putting You In A Cow Costume.

When You Legislate Personal Belief, You're In Violation Of Freedom Of Religion.

Freedom Of Religion

It Is Exhausting To Be Seventeen And Not Know Who You Are.

I Have A Friend Who Says That Reviewers Are The Tickbirds Of The Literary Rhinoceros-but He Is Being Kind. Tickbirds Perform A Valuable Service To The Rhino And The Rhino Hardly Notices The Birds.

There's No Reason You Shouldn't, As A Writer, Not Be Aware Of The Necessity To Revise Yourself Constantly.

Ambition Robs You Of Your Childhood. The Moment You Want To Become An Adult—in Any Way—something In Your Childhood Dies.

She Felt Detached From Her Family, And Thought It Strange How They Had Lavished So Much Attention On Her, As A Child, And Then At Some Appointed, Prearranged Time They Seemed To Stop The Flow Of Affection And Being The Expectations - As If, For A Brief Phrase, You Were Expected To Absorb Love (and Get Enough), And Then, For A Much Longer And More Serious Phase, You Were Expected To Fulfill Certain Obligations.

Watch Out For People Who Call Themselves Religious; Make Sure You Know What They Mean - Make Sure They Know What They Mean!

… But Only Because Exhaustion Is A Life-sign; It Is At Least A Form Of Being Human.

It's Because Even A Good Man Can't Always Be Right, That We Need ... Rules.

If Pride Is A Sin ... Moral Pride Is The Greatest Sin.

Your Memory Is A Monster; You Forget - It Doesn't. It Simply Files Things Away. It Keeps Things For You, Or Hides Things From You - And Summons Them To Your Recall With A Will Of Its Own. You Think You Have A Memory; But It Has You!

Here In St. Cloud’s,” Dr. Larch Wrote, “ I Have Been Given The Choice Of Playing God Or Leaving Practically Everything Up To Chance. It Is My Experience That Practically Everything Is Left Up To Chance Much Of The Time; Men Who Believe In Good And Evil, And Who Believe That Good Should Win, Should Watch For Those Moments When It Is Possible To Play God – We Should Seize Those Moments. There Won’t Be May

It's My Experience That Very Few Writers, Young Or Old, Are Really Seeking Advice When They Give Out Their Work To Be Read. They Want Support; They Want Someone To Say, "good Job."

I Have Always Believed That, In A Story, If Something Traumatic Or Calamitous Enough Happens To A Kid At A Formative Age, That Will Make Him Or Her The Adult They Become.

Rituals Are Comforting; Rituals Combat Loneliness.

In Increments Both Measurable And Not, Our Childhood Is Stolen From Us -- Not Always In One Momentous Event But Often In A Series Of Small Robberies, Which Add Up To The Same Loss.

When People Say That German Or Any Other Language Is Romantic... All They Really Mean Is That They've Enjoyed A Past In The Language

You Don't Have To Be In The Habit Of Going To Church To Listen To Such A Literary Minister; You Don't Have To Be A Believer To Be Moved By Mr. Buechner's Faith.

I’m Not Afraid, But I’m Very Nervous.

I Think That Was When The Headmaster Realized He Had Lost; He Realized Then That He Was Finished. Because, What Could He Do? Was He Going To Tell Us To Stop Praying? We Kept Our Heads Bowed; And We Kept Praying. Even As Awkward As He Was, The Rev. Mr. Merrill Had Made It Clear To Us That There Was No End To Praying For Owen Meany.

Whatever I Write, No Matter How Gray Or Dark The Subject Matter, It's Still Going To Be A Comic Novel.

A Personal Injustice Is Stronger Motivation Than Any Instinct For Philanthropy.

You Live Your Life At The Time You Live It -- You Don't Have Much Of An Overview When What's Happening To You Is Still Happening.

The Building Of The Architecture Of A Novel - The Craft Of It - Is Something I Never Tire Of.

The History Of A City Was Like The History Of A Family—there Is Closeness And Even Affection, But Death Eventually Separates Everyone From Each Other. It Is Only The Vividness Of Memory That Keeps The Dead Alive Forever; A Writer’s Job Is To Imagine Everything So Personally That The Fiction Is As Vivid As Our Personal Memories.

In The World According To Garp, We Are All Terminal Cases

Our Memory Is A Monster; You Forget It - It Does Not.

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I'm Not Typing. I Write Only By Longhand. I've Always Written First Drafts By Hand And Then Once I Was Into A Second Or Third Draft I Wrote Insert Pages On A Typewriter. But I Got Rid Of All My Typewriters About Three Or Four Novels Ago And Now I Do Everything By Hand. I Write By Hand Because It Makes Me Go Slow And Going Slow Is What I Like.

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Life Is An X-rated Soap Opera.

Writing Is Hard. I Learned How To Work Hard From Wrestling, Not English Courses.

The Gardener Had A Dread Of Small Women; He'd Always Imagined Them To Have An Anger Disproportionate To Their Size.

Whereas She Wished More Of The Population Were Better Educated, She Also Believed That Education Was Largely Wasted On The Majority Of The People She Met.

I Don't Begin A Novel Until I Have Written, Not Just The Last Sentence, But Usually, As A Result Thereof, Many Of The Surrounding Final Paragraphs, So That In Addition To Knowing What Happens, I Know What The Voice Is.

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Every American Should Be Forced To Live Outside The United States For A Year Or Two. Americans Should Be Forced To See How Ridiculous They Appear To The Rest Of The World! They Should Listen To Someone Else's Version Of Themselves--to Anyone Else's Version! Every Country Knows More About America Than Americans Know About Themselves! And Americans Know Absolutely Nothing About Any Other Country!

The Excitement Of Anticipation Was *almost* Equal To The Thrill Of Lovemaking.

Sometimes That's A Year, Sometimes It's 18 Months, Where All I'm Doing Is Taking Notes. I'm Reconstructing The Story From The Back To The Front So That I Know Where The Front Is.

I Had Been A Student In Vienna, And One Of The Neat Little Things I Had Found Out Was About That Zoo. It Was A Good Debut Novel For Me To Have Published. I Was 26 Or 27 When It Was Published. I Already Had A Kid And Would Soon Have A Second.

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To Each Other, We Were As Normal And Nice As The Smell Of Bread. We Were Just A Family. In A Family Even Exaggerations Make Perfect Sense.

It Is Amazing To Me, Now, How Such Wild Imaginings And Philosophies - Inspired By A Night Charged With Frights And Calamities - Made Such Perfectly Good Sense To Owen Meany And Me, But Good Friends Are Nothing To Each Other If They Are Not Supportive.

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Newspapers Are Even Worse For Me Than Ice Cream; Headlines, And The Big Issues That Generate The Headlines, Are Pure Fat.

When I Finally Write The First Sentence, I Want To Know Everything That Happens, So That I Am Not Inventing The Story As I Write It - Rather, I Am Remembering A Story That Has Already Happened.

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We Permit Bad Taste In This Country. In Fact, We Even Encourage It - And Reward It In All Manner Of Ways.

A Novel Is A Piece Of Architecture. It's Not Random Wallowings Or Confessional Diaries. It's A Building-it Has To Have Walls And Floors And The Bathrooms Have To Work.

All His Life He Would Hold This Moment As Exemplary Of What Love Was. It Was Not Wanting Anything More, Nor Was It Expecting People To Exceed What They Had Just Accomplished; It Was Simply Feeling So Complete.

The Arrangements That Couples Make In Order To Maintain Civility In The Midst Of Their Journey To Divorce Are Often Most Elaborate When The Professed Top Priority Is To Protect A Child.

I Always Begin With A Character Or Characters, And Then Try To Think Up As Much Action For Them As Possible.

We Are Formed By What We Desire

Thus We Try To Keep Our Heroes Alive; Hence We Remember Them.

A Truly Happy Woman Drives Some Men And Almost Every Other Woman Absolutely Crazy

The Ability To See The Future Can Be A Burden, And The Younger You Are And The More Isolated You Feel, Maybe The More Of A Burden It Is.

People Are Either Attracted To The Unseemly Or Disapproving Of It, Or Both; Yet We Try To Sound Superior To The Unseemly By Pretending To Be Amused By It Or Indifferent To It.

You Bet I Write Disaster Fiction. We Have Compiled A Disastrous Record On This Planet, A Record Of Stupidity And Absurdity And Self-abuse And Self-aggrandizement And Self-deception And Pompousness And Self-righteousness And Cruelty And Indifference Beyond What Any Other Species Has Demonstrated The Capacity For, Which Is The Capacity For All The Above.

Owen Meany Who Rarely Wasted Words And Who Had The Conversation-stopping Habit Of Dropping Remarks Like Coins Into A Deep Pool Of Water... Remarks That Sank, Like Truth, To The Bottom Of The Pool Where They Would Remain Untouchable.

Homer And Candy Passed By The Empty And Brightly Lit Dispensary; They Peeked Into Nurse Angela's Empty Office. Homer Knew Better Than To Peek Into The Delivery Room When The Light Was On. From The Dormitory, They Could Hear Dr. Larch's Reading Voice. Although Candy Held Tightly To His Hand, Homer Was Inclined To Hurry - In Order Not To Miss The Bedtime Story.

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.

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But Good Friends Are Nothing To Each Other If They Are Not Supportive.

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Know The Story Before You Fall In Love With Your First Sentence. If You Don’t Know The Story Before You Begin The Story, What Kind Of A Storyteller Are You? Just An Ordinary Kind, Just A Mediocre Kind – Making It Up As You Go Along, Like A Common Liar.

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Garp Drank The Beer And Wondered If Everything Was An Anticlimax.

There's No Reason You Should Write Any Novel Quickly.

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I've Always Been A Fan Of The 19th Century Novel, Of The Novel That Is Plotted, Character-driven, And Where The Passage Of Time Is Almost As Central To The Novel As A Major Minor Character, The Passage Of Time And Its Effect On The Characters In The Story.

Patriotism Is Not Necessarily Defined As Blind Devotion To A President's Particular Agenda - And That To Dispute A Presidential Policy Is Not Necessarily Anti-american.

Life Forces Enough Final Decisions On Us. We Should Have The Sense To Avoid As Many Of The Unnecessary Ones As We Can.

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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.

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The Object Of War Is To Survive It.

So, I Don't Work In Terms Of Real Time. I Don't Work In A Timely Fashion.

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People Regard Art Too Highly, And History Not Enough

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Everybody Dies … The Thing Is, To Have A Life Before We Die.

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I Certainly Think Obama Is The Most Hopeful President I've Seen In The Country Since John Kennedy.

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Nothing Bears Out In Practice What It Promises Incipiently.

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I've Always Been Interested In Miracles, Or The Miraculous Of The Unexplained. I Don't Scoff At What Makes People Believe Or Want To Believe. I Think I Understand The Tremendous Attraction Of The Mysteries Of The Church To The Same Degree That I Understand And Appreciate The Frustration People Feel, Especially Believers, With The Human Rule-making Arm Of The Church, With The Not-miraculous Part Of The Church - Any Church.

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Worst Case Scenario

So, You See, It's A Real Chore For Me To Write A Book Review Because It's Like A Contest. It's Like I'm Writing That Book Review For Every Bad Book Reviewer I've Ever Known And It's A Way Of Saying [thrusts A Middle Finger Into The Air] This Is How You Ought To Do It. I Like To Rub Their Noses In It.

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My Old Coach Used To Say That If You Were In It For The Match, If You Were In It For The Trophies, You Were In It For The Wrong Reasons.

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If Watching Television Doesn't Hasten Death, It Surely Manages To Make Death Very Inviting; For Television So Shamelessly Sentimentalizes And Romanticizes Death That It Makes The Living Feel They Have Missed Something - Just By Staying Alive.

A Part Of Adolescence Is Feelimg That There's No One Else Around Who's Enough Like Youself To Understand You.

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Here Is The Trap You Are In.... And It's Not My Trap—i Haven't Trapped You. Because Abortions Are Illegal, Women Who Need And Want Them Have No Choice In The Matter, And You—because You Know How To Perform Them—have No Choice, Either. What Has Been Violated Here Is Your Freedom Of Choice, And Every Woman's Freedom Of Choice, Too. If Abortion Was Legal, A Woman Would Have A Choice—and So Would You. You Could Feel Free Not To Do It Because Someone Else Would. But The Way It Is, You're Trapped. Women Are Trapped. Women Are Victims, And So Are You.

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Anyone Can Be Sentimental About The Nativity; Any Fool Can Feel Like A Christian At Christmas. But Easter Is The Main Event; If You Don’t Believe In The Resurrection, You’re Not A Believer." “if You Don’t Believe In Easter,” Owen Meany Said. “don’t Kid Yourself—don’t Call Yourself A Christian.

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This Is What Self-centered Religion Does To Us: It Allows Us To Use It To Further Our Own Ends.

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I Believe A Novel Should Be As Complicated And Involved As You're Capable Of Making It.

With Every Book, You Go Back To School. You Become A Student. You Become An Investigative Reporter. You Spend A Little Time Learning What It's Like To Live In Someone Else's Shoes.

He Wished He Could Arrange A Maiming As A Kind Of Moral Lesson

Death, It Seems," Garp Wrote, "does Not Like To Wait Until We Are Prepared For It. Death Is Indulgent And Enjoys, When It Can, A Flair For The Dramatic.

You Know, People Think You Have To Be Dumb To Skip Rope For 45 Minutes. No, You Have To Be Able To Imagine Something Else. While You're Skipping Rope, You Have To Be Able To See Something Else.

Nothing Moves At The Hotel New Hampshire! We're Screwed Down Here-for Life!

It Was One Of Those Ridiculous Arrangements That Couples Make When They Are Separating, But Before They Are Divorced - When They Still Imagine That Children And Property Can Be Shared With More Magnanimity Than Recrimination.

It's Magical Thinking To Imagine That The Reason Unspeakable Things Are Being Perpetrated By Younger And Younger People Is That They've Fallen Under The Influence Of Seductive, Lascivious, Prurient, And Violent Material In Books, Films, Television. A Great Deal Of This Type Of Censorship Has To Do With Absolving Parents Of Responsibility - Parents Who Just Plop Their Kids In Front Of The Television And Leave Them There Hour Upon Hour.

Half My Life Is An Act Of Revision; More Than Half The Act Is Performed With Small Changes.

The Concept Of Writing A Novel And Not Knowing Where It's Going - I Don't Know How To Do That. Novels Are Plot- And Character-driven, So If I Don't Know What Becomes Of People, How Can I Know Where It Should Begin?

…there Was No More Safety To Be Found In Love Than There Was To Be Found In A Virus.

But Who Can Distinguish Between Falling In Love And Imagining Falling In Love? Even Genuinely Falling In Love Is An Act Of The Imagination.

Falling In Love

Because Abortions Are Illegal, Women Who Need And Want Them Have No Choice In The Matter, And You-because You Know How To Perform Them-have No Choice, Either

What A Phrase That Is: 'that Explains Everything!' I Know Better Than To Think Anything 'explains Everything' Today.

We Don't Always Have A Choice How We Get To Know One Another. Sometimes, People Fall Into Our Lives Cleanly--as If Out Of The Sky, Or As If There Were A Direct Flight From Heaven To Earth--the Same Sudden Way We Lose People, Who Once Seemed They Would Always Be Part Of Our Lives

They Were Involved In That Awkward Procedure Of Getting To Unknow Each Other.

If I Have Any Advantage, Maybe, As A Writer, It Is That I Don't Think I'm Very Interesting. I Mean, Beginning A Novel With The Last Sentence Is A Pretty Plodding Way To Spend Your Life.

Wrestling Was My First Success, The First Thing That Confirmed That I Could Be Good At Anything. Devoting Yourself To Wrestling, Or Tennis, Or Skiing, Or Dance, Or To A Musical Instrument Is A Longing To Be Disciplined For A Purpose.

There's A Lot Of Ignorance About How Long It Takes To Write A Novel. There's A Lot Of Ignorance About How Long A Novel Is In Your Head Before You Start To Write It.

A Woman Half Dressed Seemed To Have Some Power, But A Man Was Simply Not As Handsome As When He Was Naked, And Not As Secure As When He Was Clothed.

What Has Been Violated Here Is Your Freedom Of Choice, And Every Woman's Freedom Of Choice, Too.

Freedom Of Choice

Lilly Was Not Crazy. She Left A Serious Suicide Note. 'sorry,' Said The Note. 'just Not Big Enough.

Keep Passing The Open Windows.

It's A No-win Argument - That Business Of What We're Born With And What Our Environment Does To Us. And It's A Boring Argument, Because It Simplifies The Mysteries That Attend Both Our Birth And Our Growth.

You've Got To Get Obsessed And Stay Obsessed.

It´s Natural To Want Someone You Love To Do What You Want, Or What You Think Would Be Good For Them, But You Have To Let Everything Happen To Them. You Can't Interfere With People You Love Any More Than You're Supposed To Interfere With People You Don't Even Know. And That's Hard, ..., Because You Often Feel Like Interfering -you Want To Be The One Who Makes The Plans.

I Have A Process That I Seem To Always, To Some Degree, As A Writer, Adhere To, But I Certainly Have Never Imposed The Way I Write A Novel On My Students. When I Had Students, I Never Said, "you Should Never Start Writing A Novel Until You Have The Last Sentence." I Never Did That, And I Wouldn't Do It Now, But People Now Seem So Interested In The Process [of Writing Fiction] That I Have To Constantly Make It Clear When I Describe Mine That I'm Not Being Prescriptive. I'm Not Proselytizing.

Goodnight You Princes Of Maine, You Kings Of New England.

The Desire To Never Leave Your Side, The Desire To Never See You Again. The Desire To See Your Face Asleep On The Pillow Beside My Face And To See Your Eyes Open In The Morning When I Lie Next To You—just Watching You, Waiting For You To Wake Up.

It's Not Right To Hurt Or Deceive Someone Who's Already Been Hurt And Deceived.

There Is No Straightforward Negotiation With A Four Year Old.

Most Places We Leave In Childhood Grow Less, Not More, Fancy.

But I Often Think That So-called Glamorous People Are Just Very Busy People.

You Don't Want To Be Ungenerous Toward People Who Give You Prizes, But It Is Never The Social Or Political Message That Interests Me In A Novel. I Begin With An Interest In A Relationship, A Situation, A Character.

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