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"To each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread. We were just a family. In a family even exaggerations make perfect sense."
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"The difference between a 'man' and a 'father' is that the former shares his genes, but latter gives his life."
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!"
"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."
"Of course, if I write a first-person novel about a woman writer, I am inviting every book reviewer to apply the autobiographical label -- to conclude that I am writing about myself. But one must never not write a certain kind of novel out of fear of what the reaction to it will be."
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