John Irving - Life Quotes

12 Sourced Quotes

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… but only because exhaustion is a life-sign; it is at least a form of being human.

John Irving
You're nice,' Cushie told him, squeezing his hand. 'And you're my oldest friend.' But they both must have known that you can know someone all your life and never quite be friends.

John Irving
… and so he tried to accept the ache in his heart as what Dr. Larch would call the common symptoms of normal life.

John Irving
Nothing moves at the Hotel New Hampshire! We're screwed down here-for life!

John Irving
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.

John Irving
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.

John Irving
So we dream on. Thus we invent our lives. We give ourselves a sainted mother, we make our father a hero; and someone's older brother and someone's older sister – they become our heroes too. We invent what we love and what we fear. There is always a brave lost brother – and a little lost sister, too. We dream on and on: the best hotel, the perfect family, the resort life. And our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them.

John Irving
Life forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can.

John Irving
Ted Seabrooke, my wrestling coach, had a kind of Nietzschean effect on me in terms of not just his estimation of my limited abilities, but his decidedly philosophical stance about how to conduct your life, what you should do to compensate for your limitations. This was essential to me, both as a student—and not a good one—and as a wrestler who was not a natural athlete but who had found something he loved.

John Irving
If you care about something you have to protect it. If you're lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.

John Irving
It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious. Prostitutes know this too.

John Irving
Half my life is an act of revision; more than half the act is performed with small changes.

John Irving