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"Self-hatred is worse than loneliness."
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"No one wants to admit we're addicted to music. That's just not possible. No one's addicted to music and television and radio. We just need more of it, more channels, a larger screen, more volume. We can't bear to be without it, but no, nobody's addicted. We could turn it off anytime we wanted. I fit a window frame into a brick wall. With a little brush, the size for fingernail polish, I glue it. The window is the size of a fingernail. The glue smells like hair spray. The smell tastes like oranges and gasoline."

"We have to know ourselves to know where we end and another person begins, and we have to develop the skills to navigate the space between us. Or else we will seek wholeness through false means that honor neither us nor those we love."

"In a way, being an addict is very proactive. A good addiction takes the guesswork out of death. There is such a thing as planning your getaway."

"We live with the key purpose of receiving the approval of those around us because we don't know who we are in reality."

"Because of propaganda induced cognitive dissonance, most people hate themselves and don't even know it."

"Maybe you never considered yourself a bully, a batterer or an abuser before, but maybe you are - to yourself."

"Whatever you frequently introduce to your subconscious mind is what it will continuously feed your feelings and emotions with."

"When we hold-on to someone's imperfections we become emotionally pair-bonded to their maladies."

"The thought is just as strong as the consequence."

"Suicide is very contagious."
Explore more quotes by John Irving

"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."

"Here is the trap you are in.... And it's not my trap-I haven't trapped you. Because abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and you-because you know how to perform them-have no choice, either. What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman's freedom of choice, too. If abortion was legal, a woman would have a choice-and so would you. You could feel free not to do it because someone else would. But the way it is, you're trapped. Women are trapped. Women are victims, and so are you."

"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."

"This mannerism of what he'd seen of society struck Homer Wells quite forcefully; people, even nice people-because, surely, Wally was nice-would say a host of critical things about someone to whom they would then be perfectly pleasant. At. St. Cloud's, criticism was plainer-and harder, if not impossible, to conceal."

"Garp didn't want a daughter because of men. Because of bad men, certainly; but even, he thought, because of men like me."

"What do Americans know about morality? They don't want their presidents to have penises but they don't mind if their presidents covertly arrange to support the Nicaraguan rebel forces after Congress has restricted such aid, they don't want their presidents to deceive their wives but they don't mind if their presidents deceive Congress-lie to the people and violate the people's constitution!"

"If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it."

"Here was the world-famous novelist with her penchant for detail; yet, in her observations of a prostitute with a customer, she had failed to come away with the most important detail of all. She could never identify the murderer; she could barely describe him. She'd made a point of not looking at him!"

"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."

"People are like that .... They need to make their own worst experiences universal. It gives them a kind of support.' And who can blame them? It is just infuriating to argue with someone like that; because of an experience that has denied them their humanity, they go around denying another kind of humanity in others, which is the truth of human variety -- it stands alongside our sameness."
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