My first attraction to writing novels was the plot, that almost extinct animal. Those novels I read which made me want to be a novelist were long, always plotted, novels - not just Victorian novels, but also those of my New England ancestors: Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
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Other Quotes by "John Irving"

There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep.
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My old coach used to say that if you were in it for the match, if you were in it for the trophies, you were in it for the wrong reasons.
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The building of the architecture of a novel - the craft of it - is something I never tire of.
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I have pretty thick skin, and I think if you're going to be in this business, if you're going to be an actor or a writer, you better have a thick skin.
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I sometimes think that what I do as a writer is make a kind of colouring book, where all the lines are there, and then you put in the colour.
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