A Quote by John Irving

Before I began The Cider House Rules, I thought I wanted to write about a father-son relationship that was closer, more conflicted, and ultimately more loving, than most. Then I began to think of a relationship between an old orphanage director and an unadoptable orphan - a kid who goes out into the world and fails and keeps coming back, so that the old guy ends up with someone he's got to keep.
I think rappers are the fall guy because some of us don't have the wits to point the finger back. The thing is when you take a whole generation and whip them out, string the mothers out and put the fathers in jail - the reason I know respect is because my father is the mediator between me and my grandfather. I'm the mediator between my son and my father because I'm old enough to understand where my father is coming from and young enough to understand what my kid is trying to do. When you whip out the mediator the kids run wild and the old people are scared of them.
I always wanted to write a story about a couple coming to that moment in their relationship where either they keep on going or it ends.
I began ear training when I was about six months old. My mother was a concert pianist, and she started all of her children with music before they were a year old. Then she began to see that I had a musical gift...
When I was young, I wanted to be a movie star. But I realized that you have no control being an actor. So I went to architecture school in NYC, because I was crazy about buildings. Then I began to realize that I got more excited about Vogue coming out each month than I was about my projects.
I think, over the course of one's lifetime, there are always certain core elements that are intriguing to you, and you take different looks as you get older, but it's something you keep coming back to. I've always been interested in the relationship between vulnerability and control. That's something that's a big thing for people, whoever they are, no matter how old you are. I think at different times, you're more aware than others.
I'm a lone wolf. I run by myself on most things. I've got lots of really great friends, but the thought of being in a long-lasting relationship? Psh, I couldn't last more than six months with somebody, let alone have a father figure around for a kid. I mean, if I could give a kid a father figure, that would be amazing.
When I went into the computer shop to change my last laptop, the 19-year-old kid behind the counter looked at my six-year-old model and described it as 'vintage.' 'Vintage?' I wanted to scream. 'Son, I've got shirts older than you! I own underpants that have seen more of the world!'
I was seeing this girl and she wanted to get more serious. But I wasn't ready to, I had just gotten out of a difficult relationship before that. So I said to her, 'Listen, you have to understand something. Relationships are like eyebrows. It's better when there's a space between them.' And that's coming from a Greek guy.
I do think there's a relationship between a book and a reader that's more intimate, in many ways, than the relationship between an audience member and a play - just by the nature of it being an object that you can have in bed with you and that you can keep and page through.
There is no one who is more conflicted in the Marvel Universe, in my opinion, than Matthew Murdock. Is he his father's son, or is he the son of his father? Is he someone who is going to solve the world's problems in a court room, or is he someone who is going to solve the world's problems with his fist?
We should think more about it, and accustom ourselves to the thought of death. We can't allow the fear of death to creep up on us unexpectedly. We have to make the fear familiar, and one way is to write about it. I don't think writing and thinking about death is characteristic only of old men. I think that if people began thinking about death sooner, they'd make fewer foolish mistakes.
If a guy married a woman and the guy was more famous, the world wouldn't deem it an inequal relationship. But if you have a guy marrying a woman who is more well-known, more, in quotes, "powerful," more wealthy, then there's a kind of reverse sexism that comes out, right?
When I was little I knew my father had been an orphan and had lived in an orphanage. I was curious, but my father wouldn't satisfy my curiosity. He told only one story about the orphanage, and that was of sneaking out and buying candy, which he sold to other orphans. He said he had a pretty good business going - till he was busted! I guess he told that anecdote because he was the hero of it and I suspect he was rarely the hero as a child, more often the victim. There's a photo of the actual orphanage on my website, and you can see it's a forbidding looking place.
In time, the hurt began to fade and it was easier to just let it go. At least I thought it was. But in every boy I met in the next few years, I found myself looking for you, and when the feelings got too strong, I'd write you another letter. But I never sent them for fear of what I might find. By then, you'd gone on with your life and I didn't want to think about you loving someone else. I wanted to remember us like we were that summer. I didn't ever want to lose that.
Thus, the apostles' adventure began as a gathering of persons who open to one another reciprocally. A direct knowledge of the Teacher began for the disciples. They saw where he lived and began to know him. They would not have to be heralds of an idea, but witnesses of a person. Before being sent to evangelize, they would have to "be" with Jesus (cf. Mark 3:14), establishing a personal relationship with him. With this foundation, evangelization is no more than a proclamation of what has been experienced and an invitation to enter into the mystery of communion with Christ (cf. 1 John 13).
We who have lived before railways were made belong to another world. It was only yesterday, but what a gulf between now and then! Then was the old world. Stage-coaches, more or less swift, riding-horses, pack-horses, highwaymen, knights in armor, Norman invaders, Roman legions, Druids, Ancient Britons painted blue, and so forth -- all these belong to the old period. But your railroad starts the new era, and we of a certain age belong to the new time and the old one. We who lived before railways, and survive out of the ancient world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark.
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