Top 78 Quotes by John Irving

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.

I wasn't afraid of anything until I had a kid. Then I was terrified because immediately I could imagine a hundred ways in which I could not protect him.

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.

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.

You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.

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.

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.

Anybody can do research. The plotting of the novel, writing the ending before you write anything else, which I always do - I don't know that everybody can do that. That's the hard part.