“Maybe television causes cancer, Garp thinks; but his real irritation is a writer's irritation: he knows that wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn't reading.”

“My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant, someone who disrupts the daily drag of life just enough to leave the victim thinking there's maybe more to it all than the mere hum-drum quality of existence.”

“It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.”

“and sometimes I sit
down at my typewriter
and I think
not of someone
cause there isn't anyone
to think
about and i wonder
is it worth it”

“In terms of the big decisions before the Government, he was incapable of making them. He, as a seasoned politician from the TV cameras could turn it on, but his demeanour behind closed doors was absolutely miserable, irritated. If I was going to summarise it: personally miserable, politically paralysed.”

“A writer who knows what he is doing isn't doing very much.”

“I think he writes the truth. Because life is like that most of the time in some shape or form, whether it’s illness or the end of the world. Cormac’s a writer’s writer. You read his writing and think, I can do that, and then you sit down and try. And you try, dude.”

“The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.”

“Teaching Latin to someone like me in high school was somewhat like trying to teach a pig to dance. It's a waste of the teacher's time and it irritates the pig.”

“Wherever I am, people always know
as if a spotlight were on me with its glow.”