Did having a dog make you less political?
David Copperfield.
Canon Campbell told me that most smart-ass Canadians tend to move to the United States. I
But you of all people! I said to him. Look at me—I never was a believer, not until this happened. If I can believe it, why can’t you? I asked Mr. Merrill. He began to stutter. It’s easier for you to j...
And you wouldn’t want to bring her home—at least not to entertain your guests or amuse the children. No, Juan Diego thought—you would want to keep her, all for yourself.
And the trick of having faith, he said, was that it was necessary to believe in God without any great or even remotely reassuring evidence that we don’t inhabit a godless universe.
And the thing about being in love, Wally said to Angel, is that you can’t force anyone. It’s natural to want someone you love to do what you want, or what you think would be good for them, but you hav...
ARE THEY ESPECIALLY WILD?
AND LOOK AT WHAT WE CALL ‘RELIGION’: TURN ON ANY TELEVISION ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING! SEE THE CHOIRS OF THE POOR AND UNEDUCATED—AND THESE TERRIBLE PREACHERS, SELLING OLD JESUS-STORIES LIKE JUNK FOOD. SOO...
Where our desires come from; that is a dark, winding road.
As a novelist, he was a little fussy about chronological order, a tad old-fashioned.)
…She was intimidating to me in the way someone who never remembers your name can be intimidating. ‘In this world,’ Franny once observed, ‘just when you’re trying to think of yourself as memorable, the...
Who are always right, and are given to reminding us of it, are irritating; prophets are irritating, and Owen Meany is decidedly a prophet. Because I don’t start a novel until I know the ending, every...
When however small a measure of jealousy is mixed with misunderstanding, there is always going to be trouble.
To burn itself on a funeral pyre and then rise up from its own ashes. Under the drawing, Owen had written: OFTEN A SYMBOL OF REBORN IDEALISM, OR HOPE—OR AN EMBLEM OF IMMORTALITY. And
Tines
Obstreperous
He smoked so much marijuana that his hair smelled like a cupboard crammed with oregano;
But writers, Garp knew, were just observers - good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.
You cannot drive with your eyes in the rear-view mirror… But dignity is difficult to maintain. Stamina requires constant upkeep. Repetition is boring. And you pay for grace.