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"Thus we try to keep our heroes alive, hence we remember them."
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"History must be documented, every moment is a sacred history."
"Once upon a time, there was a civilization in the eastern side of the world. It was one of the most advanced civilizations on the planet that existed during that time.This civilization was the glorious Indus valley civilization. No, I am not talking about India. I am talking about the land of greatness that got lost in time. Today, in the same geographical location of that great civilization, we have a piece of earth, which is known as "India. But do not mistake it to be the same glorious land that existed thousands of years ago, along with other magnificent civilizations, such as the Greeks, the Mayans, the Egyptians, the Babylonians etc."
"It comes to this then: there always have been people like me and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted."
"Every period in history has its own peculiarities."
"If you'll excuse a brief history lesson: most people didn't experience 'the sixties' until the seventies. Which meant, logically, that most people in the sixties were still experiencing the fifties--or, in my case, bits of both decades side by side. Which made things rather confusing."
Explore more quotes by John Irving
"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."
"As for Jenny, she felt only that women - just like men - should at least be able to make conscious decisions about the course of their lives; if that made her a feminist, she said, then she guessed she was one."
"Many things the gods achieve beyond our judgement,'" said the sorrowful girl. "'What we thought is not confirmed and what we thought not God contives."
"I realize that a writer's business is setting fire to Piggy Sneed-and trying to save him-again and again, forever."
"Men who believe in good and evil, and who believe that good should win, should watch for those moments when it is possible to play God."
"In our hearts... there must abide some pity for those people who have always felt themselves to be separate from even their most familiar surroundings, those people who either are foreigners or who suffer a singular point of view that makes them feel as if they're foreigners - even in their native lands. In our hearts... there also abides a certain suspicion that such people need to feel set apart from their society. But people who initiate loneliness are no less lonely than those who are suddenly surprised by loneliness, nor are they undeserving of our pity."
"THAT'S WHAT POWERFUL MEN DO TO THIS COUNTRY - IT'S A BEAUTIFUL, SEXY, BREATHLESS COUNTRY, AND POWERFUL MEN USE IT TO TREAT THEMSELVES TO A THRILL! THEY SAY THEY LOVE IT BUT THEY DON'T MEAN IT. THEY SAY THINGS TO MAKE THEMSELVES APPEAR GOOD - THEY MAKE THEMSELVES APPEAR MORAL...THE COUNTRY WANTS A SAVIOUR. THE COUNTRY IS A SUCKER FOR POWERFUL MEN WHO LOOK GOOD. WE THINK THEY'RE MORALISTS AND THEN THEY JUST USE US."
"And I find - I'm 63, and my capacity to be by myself and just spend time by myself hasn't diminished any. That's the necessary part of being a writer, you better like being alone."
"Novels were not arguments; a story worked, or it didn't, on its own merits. What did it matter if a detail was real or imagined? What mattered was that the detail seemed real, and that it was absolutely the best detail for the circumstance. That wasn't much of a theory, but it was all Ruth could truly commit herself to at the moment. It was time to retire that old lecture, and her penance was to endure the compliments of her former credo."
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