In One Person: A Novel

by John Irving

And when you love a book, commit one glorious sentence of it—perhaps your favorite sentence—to memory. That way you won’t forget the language of the story that moved you to tears.”

Imagine knowing yourself that well! Imagine being that sure about who you are.)

“people can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.”

“Your memory is a monster; you forget—it doesn’t. It simply files things away; it keeps things for you, or hides things from you. Your memory summons things to your recall with a will of its own. You imagine you have a memory, but your memory has you!”

Did I believe she was the first person to understand that no one person could ever give me everything?

By ’95—in New York, alone—more Americans had died of AIDS than were killed in Vietnam.

you live your life at the time you live it—you don’t have much of an overview when what’s happening to you is still happening.

“We already are who we are, aren’t we?

‘My only love sprung from my only hate! / Too early seen unknown, and known too late!’ ”

“My dear boy, please don’t put a label on me—don’t make me a category before you get to know me!”