It was Nurse Caroline who introduced Homer to young Dr. Harlow, who was in the throes of growing out his bangs; a cowlick persisted in making his forehead look meager; a floppy shelf of straw-colored...
It seemed to Dr. Daruwalla that his story was the opposite of universal; his story was simply strange - the doctor himself was singularly foreign.
It is simply amazing, at that age, when you’re thirteen or fourteen, how you can take being loved for granted, how (even when you are wanted) you can feel utterly alone.
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...
Isn't it perfectly possible that Nils and his wife are too depressed to have kids? The prospect of having kids depresses the shit out of me, and I'm neither suicidal nor Norwegian!
Isn't it amazing? The Americans have so many good afterthoughts!
In the world according to her father, Jenny Garp knew, we must have energy. Her famous grandmother, Jenny Fields, once thought of us as Externals, Vital Organs, Absentees, and Goners. But in the world...
In the sixties, dear Bill, we did not say 'top' and 'bottom' - we said 'pitcher' and 'catcher'...
In every life, Dolores had said, I think there’s always a moment when you must decide where you belong.
If you can’t forgive your mother, Jack, you’ll never be free of her. It’s for your own sake, you know – for your soul. When you forgive someone who’s hurt you, it’s like escaping your skin – you’re th...
If Garp was going to play lacrosse, Jenny thought, where would he go? Not out, because it’s dark; he’d lose the ball.
IT HAS TO DO WITH ALL OF US, said Owen Meany, when I called him that night. SHE WAS JUST LIKE OUR WHOLE COUNTRY—NOT QUITE YOUNG ANYMORE, NOT BUT OLD EITHER; A LITTLE BREATHLESS, VERY BEAUTIFUL, MAYBE...
IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE YOU LEARNED IT- IT'S A GIFT. IF YOU CARE ABOUT SOMETHING, YOU HAVE TO PROTECT IT. IF YOU'RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO FIND A WAY OF LIFE YOU LOVE, YOU HAVE TO FIND THE COURAGE TO LIVE IT...
INTO PARADISE MAY THE ANGELS LEAD YOU,’ he’d said over my mother’s grave; and so I say that one for him—I know it was one of his favorites. I am always saying prayers for Owen Meany. And
I want to go on being a student, I told him. I want to be a teacher. I'm just a reader, I said. DON'T SOUND SO ASHAMED, he said. READING IS A GIFT.I learned it from you, I told him.IT DOESN'T MATTER W...
I thought that fanatics would always have an audience; all one might hope to influence was the size of the audience.
I read the passage Owen had underlined most fervently in his copy of St. Thomas Aquinas— Demonstration of God’s Existence from Motion. I read the passage over and over, sitting on Owen Meany’s bed. Si...
I must part with you for my whole life, she read, with horror. I must begin a new existence amongst strange faces and strange scenes. The truth of that closed the book for her, forever.
I met him in the language lab. In a lull between lab sections, I was editing tapes for freshman German when this shuffling man of hair came in. Possibly twenty, or forty; possibly student, or faculty,...
I have learned that the consequences of our past actions are always interesting; I have learned to view the present with a forward-looking eye.