John Irving: Quotes about life

“It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.”

“You know, everybody dies. My parents died. Your father died. Everybody dies. I'm going to die too. So will you. The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a life”

“My life is a reading list.”

“Life is serious but art is fun!”

“… and so he tried to accept the ache in his heart as what Dr. Larch would call the common symptoms of normal life.”

“Half my life is an act of revision.”

“All his life he would hold this moment as exemplary of what love was. It was not wanting anything more, nor was it expecting people to exceed what they had just accomplished; it was simply feeling so complete.”

“Life forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can.”

“Everybody dies … The thing is, to have a life before we die.”

“Ted Seabrooke, my wrestling coach, had a kind of Nietzschean effect on me in terms of not just his estimation of my limited abilities, but his decidedly philosophical stance about how to conduct your life, what you should do to compensate for your limitations. This was essential to me, both as a student—and not a good one—and as a wrestler who was not a natural athlete but who had found something he loved.”