Home / Quotes / Quote by John Irving

Quote by John Irving

“I'm old-fashioned, a storyteller. I'm not an analyst and I'm not an intellectual.”

Author

John Irving is an American novelist known for his intricate narrative structures and profound character development. His works often explore themes of family, love, morality, and identity, enjoying great popularity among readers. more

“I am not attracted to writers by style. What style do Dickens, Grass, and Vonnegut have in common? How silly! I am attracted to what makes them angry, what makes them passionate, what outrages them, what they applaud and find sympathetic in human beings and what they detest about human beings, too. They are writers of great emotional range.”

Humans Human Beings Common Style Emotional Angry Passionate Silly Range Grass Sympathetic Outrage Dickens Detest

Author:John Irving

“You bet I write disaster fiction. We have compiled a disastrous record on this planet, a record of stupidity and absurdity and self-abuse and self-aggrandizement and self-deception and pompousness and self-righteousness and cruelty and indifference beyond what any other species has demonstrated the capacity for, which is the capacity for all the above.”

Writing Self Fiction Records Planets Capacity Abuse Species Stupidity Disaster Cruelty Deception Indifference Righteousness Absurdity Self Deception Self Righteousness

Author:John Irving

“Along the (writing) way accidents happen, detours get taken... But these are not "divine" accidents; I don't believe in those. 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. The more you know about a book, the freer you can be to fool around. The less you know, the tighter you get.”

“The business of writing is empathising with situations that aren't your own.”

Writing Situation

Author:Richard North Patterson

“Writing seems like the only job where what you think and feel really matters.”

Thinking Feels Writing Matter Seems Jobs

Book:The Final Judgment

Source: The Final Judgment

“I was 29 when I wrote my first novel. But I was 45 when I quit for good. I was a 16-year overnight success.”

Years Firsts Novel Quitting I Quit Overnight Success

Author:Richard North Patterson

“The manuscript you submit [should not] contain any flaws that you can identify - it is up to the writer to do the work, rather than counting on some stranger in Manhattan to do it for him.”

Should Stranger Flaws Submit Counting Manhattan Manuscripts

Author:Richard North Patterson

“I write compulsively. I've got so many ideas, and I love to do it so much, I can't not do it. I write the way some people do drugs.”

People Way Writing I Can Ideas Drug

Author:Chuck Palahniuk

Quote by John Irving

Author

You May Also Like