"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."
— John Irving (A Prayer for Owen Meany)

"The thing that is most hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most wind up in parentheses."
— John Irving

"half my life is the act of revision"
— John Irving

"In increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us -- not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss."
— John Irving (Until I Find You)

"Life forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can."
— John Irving (Until I Find You: A Novel)