A Prayer for Owen Meany

by John Irving

It would be a better story, I think, if Mr. Fish had been killed by the diaper truck—but every study of the gods, of everyone’s gods, is a revelation of vengeance toward the innocent.

“BELIEF IS NOT AN INTELLECTUAL MATTER,” he complained. “IF HE’S GOT SO MUCH DOUBT, HE’S IN THE WRONG BUSINESS.”

When someone you love dies, and you’re not expecting it, you don’t lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes—when there’s a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she’s gone, forever—there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. “BUT THERE’S NO EVIDENCE FOR THAT,” Owen told Mrs. Walker in Sunday school.

“I DON’T KNOW HOW I KNOW,” said Owen Meany. “I JUST KNOW THAT I KNOW,” he said.

If I have ice cream in my freezer, I’ll eat it—I’ll eat all of it, all at once. Therefore, I’ve learned not to buy ice cream.