Until I Find You Quotes

“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

“The desire to never leave your side, the desire to never see you again. The desire to see your face asleep on the pillow beside my face and to see your eyes open in the morning when I lie next to you—just watching you, waiting for you to wake up.”
― 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

“When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother's hand, his fingers could see in the dark.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“You can give yourself a headache trying to decipher the tattoos on a naked man who’s leaping up and down on a bed.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“She was an expert at the art of sudden appearance.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“Anne-Elisabeth had taken the music from Dr. Horvath and was looking through it. 'I see finger-cramping possibilities, William - lots of them,' she told him.
I see music,' William said, winking at her. 'Lots of it.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“The point was - he wasn't acting. It was as if he'd forgotten how! Jack still knew his lines, but he was out of character... Jack had stopped acting. He was just Jack Burns - the real Jack Burns at last.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“It surprised him that she was the one who looked stricken with fear, as if she were a prisoner in the passenger seat and saw the fast-approaching collision seconds before the drive could react to it. Bonnie pinched her lower lip with her teeth and stared at Jack as if she were transfixed--as if he were the upcoming accident, and, even though she saw him coming, she couldn't turn away.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“Once again, Jack reached for her hand. It was the only thing he knew how to do. As it would turn out, it was about the only thing he reall knew.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“What did you do that for?” the customs guy asked him. “We haven’t been getting along lately,” Jack admitted. “Well, this’ll really help,” the guy said.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“Jack realized that when you’re happy – especially when it’s the first time in your life – you think of things that would never have occurred to you when you were unhappy.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“It’s not the tattoos, my dear boy,” Jack’s father said, standing naked before him—the shocking white of William’s hands and face and neck and penis being the only parts of him that weren’t an almost uniform blue-black, some of which had faded to gray. “It’s everything I truly heard and felt—it’s everything I ever loved! It’s not the tattoos that marked me.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“It seemed to Alice that the drunk should have been struck dead for using such language in a church, but before God could take any action against the down-and-out, William resumed playing—with a vengeance.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“But not even a drunk can sleep through Boellmann’s Toccata—not even outside the church, apparently. Alice enjoyed acting out how the drunken down-and-out had presented himself.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“As Jack would discover, it’s remarkable how you can miss people you barely knew – even those people you never especially liked.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“Do not forget the past; forgive the past.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“Life forces enough final decisions on us,” Mrs. Oastler continued. “We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“In those days, a tattoo was still a souvenir—a keepsake to mark a journey, the love of your life, a heartbreak, a port of call. The body was like a photo album; the tattoos themselves didn’t have to be good photographs. Indeed,”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory—meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion—is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw. —WILLIAM MAXWELL,
So Long, See You Tomorrow”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory—meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion—is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“Have you had a look at Ruth’s purse?” Jack’s dad asked him, indicating Dr. von Rohr’s rather large handbag; it was too big to fit under her chair. “More like a suitcase, if you ask me—more like an overnight bag,” William said, winking at Jack. His father was outrageously suggesting that Dr. von Rohr had prepared herself for the possibility of spending the night at the Hotel zum Storchen with Jack! “It’s not every day you meet a man who compliments a woman’s accessories,” Dr. von Rohr told Jack, smiling.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“It means touch, basically—almost a hammered kind of touch,”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“But he was not acting in this performance—they were.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“It’s a good job to lose!” Jack called after them, but they kept walking. He was so bad as Melody, even Wild Bill Vanvleck would have made him repeat the line. The point was—he wasn’t acting. It was as if he’d forgotten how! Jack still knew his lines, but he was out of character. He had a sister, and he loved her; she’d said she loved him, too. Jack had stopped acting. He was just Jack Burns—the real Jack Burns at last.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“Heather moved her fingers all the while they were walking, as if she were unconsciously playing a piano or an organ.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“The vegans had also beseeched the landlord to remove the weather vane from the top of the apartment building. My sister is living with lunatics!”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“Jack wouldn’t have wanted to be buried there. If you were lying in that graveyard, facing south, you would be looking at an ugly seventeen-story high-rise for the rest of your death.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“Everyone has a history, Jack.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“What wouldn’t you believe when you were four, and your mom was the manager of your so-called memories?”
― John Irving, Until I Find You