Top 78 Quotes by John Irving

I have a very poor record at multiple choice questions.

I sometimes think that what I do as a writer is make a kind of colouring book, where all the lines are there, and then you put in the colour.

Sometimes that's a year, sometimes it's 18 months, where all I'm doing is taking notes. I'm reconstructing the story from the back to the front so that I know where the front is.

I think there is often a 'what if' proposition that gets me thinking about all my novels.

More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn't say I have a talent that's special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina.

I don't think I've had a very interesting life, and I feel that is a great liberation. That gives me great freedom as a fiction writer. Nothing that happened holds any special tyranny over me.

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.

I get up early. I like to read a little before anyone but the dog is up. I also like to read at night, not in bed but just before I go to bed.

Good habits are worth being fanatical about.

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.