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
A writer's job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A writer should create imaginative stories that feel as tangible and real as personal memories.
John Irving emphasizes that a writer's role is to delve deeply into their imagination and experiences, crafting fictional narratives that resonate with authenticity. The goal is to make the reader feel as though they are recalling their own memories while engaging with the story, thereby creating a powerful and immersive experience.
Themes
WriterImaginationFictionMemoriesCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a workshop on creative writing, this quote can inspire new writers to connect deeply with their own experiences while crafting stories.
More from John Irving
All quotes →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
Because abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and you-because you know how to perform them-have no choice, either
John IrvingRead
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