“The arrangements that couples make in order to maintain civility in the midst of their journey to divorce are often most elaborate when the professed top priority is to protect a child.”

—  John Irving

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The arrangements that couples make in order to maintain civility in the midst of their journey to divorce are often mos…" by John Irving?
John Irving photo
John Irving 97
American novelist and screenwriter 1942

Related quotes

John Irving photo

“We often need to lose sight of our priorities in order to see them.”

Source: Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

John Locke photo

“Let a child but be ordered to whip his top at a certain time every day”

Sec. 73
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Context: None of the things they learn, should ever be made a burthen to them, or impos's on them as a task. Whatever is so proposed, presently becomes irksome; the mind takes an aversion to it, though before it were a thing of delight or indifferency. Let a child but be ordered to whip his top at a certain time every day, whether he has or has not a mind to it; let this be but requir'd of him as a duty, wherein he must spend so many hours morning and afternoon, and see whether he will not soon be weary of any play at this rate. Is it not so with grown men?

Mary Winsor photo

“There is, then, a logical priority about the arrangements, and logic has nothing to do with time.”

Anthony Stafford Beer (1926–2002) British theorist, consultant, and professor

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 3, Quantified Insight, p. 74.

“Order is the priority of power.”

Nick Drake (poet) (1961) British writer

Ch 9
The Rahotep series, Book 2: Tutankhamun

Eric Hoffer photo

“It has been often stated that a social order is likely to be stable so long as it gives scope to talent. Actually, it is the ability to give scope to the untalented that is most vital in maintaining social stability.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Source: The Ordeal of Change (1963), Ch. 13: "Scribe, Writer, and Rebel"
Context: It has been often stated that a social order is likely to be stable so long as it gives scope to talent. Actually, it is the ability to give scope to the untalented that is most vital in maintaining social stability. For not only are the untalented more numerous but, since they cannot transmute their grievances into a creative effort, their disaffection will be more pronounced and explosive. Thus the most troublesome problem which confronts social engineering is how to provide for the untalented and, what is equally important, how to provide against them. For there is a tendency in the untalented to divert their energies from their own development into the management, manipulation, and probably frustration of others. They want to police, instruct, guide, and meddle. In an adequate social order, the untalented should be able to acquire a sense of usefulness and of growth without interfering with the development of talent around them. This requires, first, an abundance of opportunities for purposeful action and self advancement. Secondly, a wide diffusion of technical and social skills so that people will be able to work and manage their affairs with a minimum of tutelage. The scribe mentality is best neutralized by canalizing energies into purposeful and useful pursuits, and by raising the cultural level of the whole population so as to blur the dividing line between the educated and the uneducated. If such an arrangement lacks provisions for the encouragement of the talented it yet has the merit of not interfering with them.

Norman Mailer photo

“One gets the impression that people come to Los Angeles in order to divorce themselves from the past, here to live or try to live in the rootless pleasure world of an adult child.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)

F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Warren Farrell photo

Related topics