John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989)

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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.

John Irving
Never confuse faith, or belief — of any kind — with something even remotely intellectual.

John Irving
A truly happy woman drives some men and almost every other woman absolutely crazy

John Irving
The kind of people claiming to be in communication with God today … they are enough to drive a real Christian crazy!

John Irving
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.

John Irving
YOU LET ME DROWN! Owen said. YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! YOU JUST WATCHED ME DROWN! I'M ALREADY DEAD! he told us. REMEMBER THAT: YOU LET ME DIE.

John Irving
Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean—make sure they know what they mean!

John Irving
When however small a measure of jealousy is mixed with misunderstanding, there is going to be trouble.

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
I don't want you to describe to me—not ever—what you were doing to that poor boy to make him sound like that; but if you ever do it again, please cover his mouth with your hand.

John Irving
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!

John Irving
Almost everyone is dying to leave home, eventually; and almost everyone needs to.

John Irving
Every study of the gods, of everyone's gods, is a revelation of vengeance towards the innocent.

John Irving