“Life, to me, is a series of false limits and my challenge as an athlete is to explore those limits on a bike.”

"John Irving Interviewed by Suzanne Herel." Mother Jones magazine, May/June 1997.

Source: Dragonsinger

In Pursuit of Valis: Selections from the Exegesis (1991)
Context: I am a fictionalizing philosopher, not a novelist; my novel and story-writing ability is employed as a means to formulate my perception. The core of my writing is not art but truth. Thus what I tell is the truth, yet I can do nothing to alleviate it, either by deed or explanation. Yet this seems somehow to help a certain kind of sensitive troubled person, for whom I speak. I think I understand the common ingredient in those whom my writing helps: they cannot or will not blunt their own intimations about the irrational, mysterious nature of reality, and, for them, my corpus of writing is one long ratiocination regarding this inexplicable reality, an investigation and presentation, analysis and response and personal history. My audience will always be limited to those people.

"Get Bout It & Rowdy", Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told (1998).
Context: So if you got your chrome, you need to stay in the zone
And get a vest for your mutha fuckin dome
Cause it's on like a dog with out his bone
I'm in it to win it and No Limit is my home (for life for life).

Introductory Chapter, pp.9-10
The Differential and Integral Calculus (1836)

Part Seven, Chapter 7.
Blue Highways (1982)
Context: Boredom lies only with the traveler's limited perception and his failure to explore deeply enough. After a while, I found my perception limited.