A Quote by John Irving

I think that writers are, at best, outsiders to the society they inhabit. They have a kind of detachment, or try to have.

John Irving

Quote Topics

Best Detachment Inhabit Kind Outsiders Society Think Try Writers

Quote Author

John Irving
American - Novelist
Born: March 2, 1942

Writers are outsiders. Even when we seem like insiders, we're outsiders. We have to be. Our noses pressed to the glass, we notice everything. We mull and interpret. We store away clues, details that may be useful to us later.

Dani Shapiro

Some people think that writers are innately solitary and that there's a kind of romance to that solitariness. I tend to think that what writers really want to do is get accepted into things. They want to get accepted into society, into culture, into intelligentsia, into the fun. Writing is their mechanism, their instrument, for doing that.

Richard Ford

Writers, as they gain success, feel like outsiders because writers don't come together in real groups.

Anne Rice

The peculiarities of my childhood, of constantly moving through so many different cultures, of always being the outsider, may have made me extraordinarily self-sufficient, but it had also bred a certain detachment, a sense that the world was a place to explore rather than truly inhabit. This manifested as a kind of shyness, even timidity.

Scott Anderson

Indifference looks like detachment, but it is not; indifference is simply no interest. Detachment is not absence of interest - detachment is absolute interest, tremendous interest, but still with the capacity of non-clinging. Enjoy the moment while it is there and when the moment starts disappearing, as everything is bound to disappear, let it go. That is detachment.

Rajneesh

When people talk about imagination, they tend to think of fantasy or something made-up. But really imagination is a mode of perception. Which is maybe why so many artists have turned to the occult. Artists tend to feel like outsiders. Whether they are actually outsiders or not is also kind of irrelevant.

Janaka Stucky

I think that, for so much of our matriculation through American society, black people sort of feel like outsiders.

Kenya Barris

Go out into the world, do your best all day, try to think higher thoughts, try to be kind and compassionate, but don't let people take advantage of you.

Frederick Lenz

The same applies to any artist; we are the tools and instruments of our talent. We are outsiders; we have no place in society because society is what we’re watching, and dealing with.

William Trevor

Women writers specifically... are the ultimate outsiders.

Janet Fitch

Writers are spies. Outsiders. Believers in the turning pages.

Alexis De Veaux

I don't think my father had a direct influence on me, but I do think, more or less, I was influenced by his independent individualism. And the kind of condition he had when he was in this society - the kind of mistreatment society gave him.

Ai Weiwei

It doesn't matter if you're good at anything, just try your best. Then there's the idea that individually they're flawed but together they can do amazing things. I think that's a very nice message and it's not something you hit people over the head with. It just comes with The Muppets; it's what they're about. It's that kind of innocent try, try, try quality. And it also makes them underdogs. You can't help but support the underdog.

James Bobin

I think, when you're an actor, it kind of enables you to fully inhabit all of the youngest parts of yourself.

Barrett Wilbert Weed

If getting on the radio was a major motivation, I'd be one of the worst writers of all time. I admire people who do it, and I think it's a nice way to work, but I try to do the best I can and write what I like. I don't worry about it.