A writer's job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories.
John IrvingRead
Crazy people made him crazy. It was as if he personally resented them giving into madness - in part, because he so frequently labored to behave sanely. When some people gave up the labor of sanity, or failed at it, Garp suspected them of not trying hard enough.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote explores the tension between sanity and madness, reflecting on how the actions of those around us can influence our mental state.
In this quote, John Irving delves into the complexities of sanity and madness, highlighting how external influences can impact our perception of reality and mental health. The protagonist, Garp, feels frustrated by those who seem to abandon their efforts to maintain sanity, suggesting a deep connection between personal responsibility and mental well-being. It illustrates the struggle against societal madness and the internal conflict that arises when one attempts to uphold sanity in a chaotic world.
Themes
MadnessSanityMental HealthResponsibilityInfluence
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the effects of societal norms on mental health, this quote can underscore the challenges of maintaining sanity.
More from John Irving
All quotes →No 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 – toward an infinity of unsatisfying, and disagreeable endings.
John IrvingRead
Similar quotes
The psyche of the individual is commensurate with the totality of creative energy. This requires a most radical revision of Western psychology.
Stanislav GrofRead
The great thing about behavioural psychology and economics is that they help us to see that there are actually pretty good reasons why human beings swing from greed to fear, and why we're not really calculating machines or utility-maximisers.
Niall FergusonRead
There is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and ... if that procedure is employed, every dream reveals itself as a psychical structure which has a meaning and which can be inserted at an assignable point in the mental activities of waking life.
Sigmund FreudRead
But behavior in the human being is sometimes a defense, a way of concealing motives and thoughts, as language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.
Abraham MaslowRead
Since [narcissists] deep down, feel themselves to be faultless, it is inevitable that when they are in conflict with the world they will invariably perceive the conflict as the world's fault. Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad. They project their own evil onto the world. They never think of themselves as evil, on the other hand, they consequently see much evil in others.
M. Scott PeckRead
Last time I talked to her she didn't sound like herself. She's depressed. It's awful what happens when people run out of money. They start thinking they're no good.
Barbara KingsolverRead