Quotes By John Irving

There's no reason you shouldn't, as a writer, not be aware of the necessity to revise yourself constantly.

I never know when I finish the novel I am writing which will be the next novel out of the station.

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

I have pretty thick skin, and I think if you're going to be in this business, if you're going to be an actor or a writer, you better have a thick skin.

Sigmund Freud was a novelist with a scientific background. He just didn't know he was a novelist. All those damn psychiatrists after him, they didn't know he was a novelist either.

My old coach used to say that if you were in it for the match, if you were in it for the trophies, you were in it for the wrong reasons.

If I have any advantage, maybe, as a writer, it is that I don't think I'm very interesting. I mean, beginning a novel with the last sentence is a pretty plodding way to spend your life.

Whatever I write, no matter how gray or dark the subject matter, it's still going to be a comic novel.