A writer's job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories.
John IrvingRead
We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly--as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth--the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives
Interpretation
What this quote means
Relationships can form unexpectedly and can disappear just as suddenly.
This quote by John Irving reflects on the unpredictable nature of human connections, suggesting that some people enter our lives suddenly and seemingly without warning, much like fate intervenes. It emphasizes that while we may not control how we meet others, the profound impacts of those relationships can resonate deeply, making their eventual departure feel equally unexpected and significant.
Themes
RelationshipsConnectionsFateLossFriendship
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of friendships, this quote can highlight how relationships can be both precious and fleeting.
More from John Irving
All quotes βNo one but me ever put a hand on me to feel that baby. No one wanted to put his ear against it and listen...You shouldn't have a baby if there's no one who wants to feel it kick or listen to it move.
John IrvingRead
It's not very interesting to establish sympathy for people who, on the surface, are instantly sympathetic. I guess I'm always attracted to people who, if their lives were headlines in a newspaper, you might not be very sympathetic about them.
John IrvingRead
It is an important distinction to note that she looked not only as if she had taken good care of herself, but that she had good reason to have done so. (...) She looked to be in such total possession of her life that only the most confident men could continue to look at her if she looked back at them. Even in bus stations, she was a woman who was stared at only until she looked back.
John IrvingRead
I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice. Not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God. I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.
John IrvingRead
I will tell you what is my overriding perception of the last twenty years: that we are a civilization careening toward a succession of anticlimaxes β toward an infinity of unsatisfying, and disagreeable endings.
John IrvingRead
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