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" I suppose I try to look for those things where the world turns on you. It's every automobile accident, every accident at a party, you're having a good time until suddenly you're not. "
John Irving
Time
Having A Good Time
World
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" 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 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
" 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
" I suppose I'm proudest of my novels for what's imagined in them. I think the world of my imagination is a richer and more interesting place than my personal biography. "
John Irving
Interesting
Imagination
World
" I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin. "
John Irving
Story
Ending
Writing
" There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep. "
John Irving
Things
Real World
Child
" I have a very poor record at multiple choice questions. "
John Irving
Very
Poor
Questions
" I believe that, in any novel of mine, the principal objective is the construction of the whole. "
John Irving
I Believe
Mine
Believe
" 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 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
" 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
" When I love a novel I've read, I want to reread it - in part, to see how it was constructed. "
John Irving
Want
Love
Novel
" 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 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 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 think the sport of wrestling, which I became involved with at the age of 14... I competed until I was 34, kind of old for a contact sport. I coached the sport until I was 47. I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline I have to write. "
John Irving
Old
Think
Age
" When I feel like being a director, I write a novel. "
John Irving
Director
Write
Like
" There's no reason you should write any novel quickly. "
John Irving
Write
Reason
You
" 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
" You can't learn everything you need to know legally. "
John Irving
You
Need
Legally
" 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
" There's no reason you shouldn't, as a writer, not be aware of the necessity to revise yourself constantly. "
John Irving
Necessity
You
Writer
" 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
" Anybody can do research. The plotting of the novel, writing the ending before you write anything else, which I always do - I don't know that everybody can do that. That's the hard part. "
John Irving
Writing
You
Ending
" I'm not a twentieth-century novelist, I'm not modern, and certainly not postmodern. I follow the form of the nineteenth-century novel; that was the century that produced the models of the form. I'm old-fashioned, a storyteller. I'm not an analyst, and I'm not an intellectual. "
John Irving
Follow
Analyst
Modern
" 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've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand. "
John Irving
Written
Always
Drafts
" You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed. "
John Irving
Get
You
Stay
" The principal event of my childhood was that no adult in my family would tell me who my father was. "
John Irving
Father
Family
Childhood
" 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. "
John Irving
Think
Interesting
Way