A writer's job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories.
John IrvingRead
And Father said, “There are no happy endings.” “Right!” cried Iowa Bob – an odd mixture of exuberance and stoicism in his cracked voice. “Death is horrible, final, and frequently premature,” Coach Bob declared. “So what?” my father said. “Right!” cried Iowa Bob. “That’s the point: So what?” Thus the family maxim was that an unhappy ending did not undermine a rich and energetic life. This was based on the belief that there were no happy endings.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life is marked by struggles and challenges, and the end does not diminish the value of a lived experience.
This quote emphasizes the notion that life does not guarantee happy endings, yet it suggests that the richness of one's life lies in the experiences and vitality lived throughout, irrespective of how it concludes. By accepting that death and difficulties are a part of existence, one can embrace life with fervor, understanding that a fulfilling journey is more significant than the final outcome.
Themes
LifeEndingsExperienceDeathJourney
In practice
Example use cases
You could use this quote in a speech about resilience during difficult times.
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
...let us recognize that extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere. Let us recall that poverty is a denial of human rights. For the first time in history, in this age of unprecedented wealth and technical prowess, we have the power to save humanity from this shameful scourge. Let us summon the will to do it.
Kofi AnnanRead
The only matter that could take Egypt to war again is water.
Anwar SadatRead
If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that registered earthquakes ten thousand miles away.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
When politics and home life have become one and the same thing, [...] then,[...] it is evident that we will be in a state of total liberty or anarchy.
Leo TolstoyRead
Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
Niccolo MachiavelliRead
Compassion being action without motive, without self-interest, without any sense of fear, without any sense of pleasure.
Jiddu KrishnamurtiRead