Sometimes that's a year, sometimes it's... | John Irving

Months

Sometimes that's a year, sometimes it's 18 months, where all I'm doing is taking notes. I'm reconstructing the story from the back to the front so that I know where the front is.

- John Irving

Quote of the Day

I boxed 15 years in a club.

- Uwe Boll

Other quotes by John Irving

Sympathy Fact Nothing People

I take people very seriously. People are all I take seriously, in fact. Therefore, I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave - and nothing but laughter to console them with.

- John Irving

Right First Want

And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.

- John Irving

Writer Life

More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn't say I have a talent that's special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina.

- John Irving

Ending Words

I don't begin a novel or a screenplay until I know the ending. And I don't mean only that I have to know what happens. I mean that I have to hear the actual sentences. I have to know what atmosphere the words convey.

- John Irving

Time

I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the story.

- John Irving

Life

Half my life is an act of revision.

- John Irving

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Months Now Years

However, I keep reminding them that this issue is not a new issue that has come out for this election. This issue has been in the courts for two years and two months now.

- Sibel Edmonds

Months Right

I think we're really getting it right the last few months and hopefully we'll get better and better at it.

- David Talbot

Months

I lived in LA for a few months. It seemed like no one there had parents. Or if they did have parents, they would deny it.

- Catherine O'Hara

Months

I had been, you know, held in the closet for two months and, you know, abused in all manner of ways. I was very good at doing what I was told.

- Patty Hearst

Months Talking

There needs to be a planned series of speeches, interviews, etc., over the next two or three months by administration officials and other public figures talking about President Ford, what he is trying to do and what he has accomplished.

- Robert Teeter

Months Years

Most bands don't even last fourteen months let alone fourteen years.

- Peter Steele