Unlike Alice, Garp was a real writer –not because he wrote more beautifully than she wrote but because he knew what every artist should know: as Garp put it, 'You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else.' Even if these so-called endings and beginnings are illusions. Garp did not write faster than anyone else, or more; he simply always worked with the idea of completion in mind. John Irving
Writing is a struggle against silence.
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Carlos Fuentes
Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed; an architectural one, where it is constructed; and finally, a textile one, where it is woven.
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Walter Benjamin
People who think that grammar is just a collection of rules and restrictions are wrong. If you get to like it, grammar reveals the hidden meaning of history, hides disorder and abandonment, links things and brings opposites together. Grammar is a wonderful way of organising...
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Delphine De Vigan
In the final exam in the Chaucer course we were asked why he used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote, 'I don't think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these things....
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Madeleine LEngle
For most of the process, nothing but faith, fueled by your own stubbornness, will be pulling you along. The work that you've done on the book so far won't be much comfort, because so much of it will be insufferable crap, until the very last...
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Kristin Cashore
More Quotes By John Irving
It´s natural to want someone you love to do what you want, or what you think would be good for them, but you have to let everything happen to them. You can't interfere with people you love any more than you're supposed to interfere with...
If you care about something you have to protect it — If you’re lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.
My life is a reading list.
It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.
It is your responsibility to find fault with me, it is mine to hear you out. But don't expect me to change.
