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" Half my life is an act of revision. "
John Irving
Half
Act
Revision
Related Quotes:
" I don't really set out to explore grand themes. I set out to tell a story. And one I have to be able to imagine right through. "
John Irving
Explore
Story
Tell
" 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. "
John Irving
Me
Good
Little Things
" I get up early. I like to read a little before anyone but the dog is up. I also like to read at night, not in bed but just before I go to bed. "
John Irving
Dog
Early
Go
" I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand. "
John Irving
Written
Always
Drafts
" I grew up in a family where, through my teenage years, I was expected to go to church on Sunday. It wasn't terribly painful. I thought some of the stories were neat; I liked some of the liturgy and some of the songs. "
John Irving
Thought
Church
Family
" I believe you have constructive accidents en route through a novel only because you have mapped a clear way. If you have confidence that you have a clear direction to take, you always have confidence to explore other ways; if they prove to be mere digressions, you'll recognize that and make the necessary revisions. "
John Irving
You
Way
Direction
" I wasn't afraid of anything until I had a kid. Then I was terrified because immediately I could imagine a hundred ways in which I could not protect him. "
John Irving
Ways
Afraid
Protect
" And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you. "
John Irving
Me
Connections
Story
" When I feel like being a director, I write a novel. "
John Irving
Director
Write
Like
" 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. "
John Irving
You
Long
Ignorance
" You can't learn everything you need to know legally. "
John Irving
You
Need
Legally
" 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. "
John Irving
Used
Say
Old
" So, I don't work in terms of real time. I don't work in a timely fashion. "
John Irving
Timely
Fashion
Real
" No adult in my family would ever tell me anything about who my father was. I knew from an older cousin - only four years older than I am - everything, or what little I could discover about him. "
John Irving
Everything
I Am
Father
" 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. "
John Irving
Time
Live
Shoes
" 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. "
John Irving
Nice
Smell
Perfect
" I don't read anything electronically. I don't write electronically, either - except e-mails to my family and friends. I write in longhand. I have always written first drafts by hand, but I used to write subsequent drafts and insert pages on a typewriter. "
John Irving
First
Family
Friends
" I believe in plot, in development of character, in the effect of the passage of time, in a good story - better than something you might find in the newspaper. And I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it. "
John Irving
Believe
Story
Time
" I believe in rules of behavior, and I'm quite interested in stories about the consequences of breaking those rules. "
John Irving
Consequences
Rules
Behavior
" Of all the things you choose in life, you don't get to choose what your nightmares are. You don't pick them; they pick you. "
John Irving
You
Life
Nightmares
" I lived five years in the Midwest, and I loved it. The people were so nice. The people were so open. "
John Irving
People
Loved
Nice
" You don't want to dwell on your enemies, you know. I basically feel so superior to my critics for the simple reason that they haven't done what I do. Most book reviewers haven't written 11 novels. Many of them haven't written one. "
John Irving
Simple
Know
Done
" I'm not writing non-fiction. I don't feel anything about me as a kid was unique. Except that I had more interest in being alone and using my imagination. "
John Irving
Being Alone
Alone
Imagination
" 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. "
John Irving
Story
Fan
Always
" 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
Forget
You
Think
" The building of the architecture of a novel - the craft of it - is something I never tire of. "
John Irving
Building
Never
Architecture
" I grew up around books - my grandmother's house, where I lived as a small child, was full of books. My father was a history teacher, and he loved the Russian novels. There were always books around. "
John Irving
Child
Father
Small
" More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn't say I have a talent that's special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina. "
John Irving
Say
My Life
Talent
" I write very quickly; I rewrite very slowly. It takes me nearly as long to rewrite a book as it does to get the first draft. I can write more quickly than I can read. "
John Irving
Me
I Can
Draft
" There's no reason you should write any novel quickly. "
John Irving
Write
Reason
You