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" 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
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" My first attraction to writing novels was the plot, that almost extinct animal. Those novels I read which made me want to be a novelist were long, always plotted, novels - not just Victorian novels, but also those of my New England ancestors: Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. "
John Irving
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Long
" You can't learn everything you need to know legally. "
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Legally
" I do know where I'm going and it's just a matter of finding the language to get there. "
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Matter
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" 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. "
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Go
" 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
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Father
" 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. "
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Story
Sometimes
Back
" 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
" 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
" One of the humbling things about having written more than one novel is the sense that every time you begin, that new empty page does not know who you are. "
John Irving
Empty
New
Page
" 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
" 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
" So, I don't work in terms of real time. I don't work in a timely fashion. "
John Irving
Timely
Fashion
Real
" If you presume to love something, you must love the process of it much more than you love the finished product. "
John Irving
More
Product
Process
" The building of the architecture of a novel - the craft of it - is something I never tire of. "
John Irving
Building
Never
Architecture
" I had a particular affinity for wrestling, and it did have a lot to do with being small and being combative - and being angry. And when you're small and you don't back down, you get in a lot of fights. "
John Irving
Back
You
Wrestling
" It's not very interesting to establish sympathy for people who, on the surface, are instantly sympathetic. I guess I'm always attracted to people who, if their lives were headlines in a newspaper, you might not be very sympathetic about them. "
John Irving
Sympathy
People
Interesting
" Half my life is an act of revision. "
John Irving
Half
Act
Revision
" I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand. "
John Irving
Written
Always
Drafts
" Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties. "
John Irving
Writing
Looking
Searching
" I don't think I've had a very interesting life, and I feel that is a great liberation. That gives me great freedom as a fiction writer. Nothing that happened holds any special tyranny over me. "
John Irving
Me
Freedom
Great
" 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
" I never know when I finish the novel I am writing which will be the next novel out of the station. "
John Irving
Will
Finish
I Am
" Good habits are worth being fanatical about. "
John Irving
Good
Being
Good Habits
" 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. "
John Irving
You
Dumb
People
" There's no reason you should write any novel quickly. "
John Irving
Write
Reason
You
" I sometimes think that what I do as a writer is make a kind of colouring book, where all the lines are there, and then you put in the colour. "
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You
Book
Kind
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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