John Irving Quotes

It is very enjoyable, writing a story. You get this idea. It takes hold of you. And then you spend day and night thinking about how to do it. And then you do it. And much later, you think, 'Oh, yes. That's an interesting question.'

I remember how I would wait for a play idea. I wasted a tremendous amount of time. I didn't realize that ideas could be made into movies or novels.

Once I have a story idea I like it doesn't even matter to me what genre it is, I'm just so happy to have one.

I don't actually have a one wellspring of inspiration. Though I'm most often inspired while reading - both fiction and nonfiction.

As a novelist, you could say that I am dreaming while I am awake, and every day I can continue with yesterday's dream. Because it is a dream, there are so many contradictions and I have to adjust them to make the story work. But, in principle, the original dream does not change.

When people find out that I've written 208 novels, they ask, 'How did you think of all that?' Well, I answer, 'How do you not think of it?' I see a gum wrapper on the ground, and I think, 'Oh, a Russian spy probably dropped that.' I just think like that, and those thoughts go through my mind constantly.

You never know how - or when - the idea for a book will appear.

From the beginning, when I first got an idea for a story and wondered if I could write it, it has always been the story that has driven me.

A lot of times, the inspiration for a novel is a messy bird's nest of shiny things. Little things that don't make a whole lot of sense or that, no matter how hard you look, cannot be found directly in the finished book.

If one day a TV series comes into my head, and that is what I want to write, I'll write it. It just depends what story is in my brain at the time.

Every day I fantasise about situations and little themes I see in front of me that would make a good beginning of a story. But one has to be disciplined and just sit down and do it.

True confession time: I never know where a book is going. I get a gut feeling the story is there, then pursue it with the enthusiasm of a hunting tiger on a trail. If I knew where I was going, I'd get bored out of my mind and stop writing.

What I have to write, the story, it is always going on in my mind. What incidences I can add in the story - it is a continuous process.

A novel usually begins, in my experience, with a thought or image that won't leave me alone.

Whenever I write a novel, most of the time it starts with barest slip of an idea.

I think the most rewarding part for me is kind of not knowing where the story's going next, and then finding out and being blown away by it.

My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.

For me, inspiration isn't a sort of spark which lights the fire of the story. It's more like a thread, one of many, which you can tease out of a story once it's written, if you feel so inclined.

I've never had a writer's block, but still I think: 'Is it going to happen this time?' You never know what you're going to get; you just put your fingers on the keys and hope.

Blank paper has always inspired me.

With a novel, there is no hurrying it. You're constantly walking into the unknown.

Usually after finishing a novel, I have a head full of bad ideas for the next one.

I don't stare at a sheet of paper and try to think of a good word to use. I try to see where the story should go.

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

I always say that, for me, writing a book is like a wacky Greyhound bus trip - I know where I'm starting and where I'll end up, but I have no idea what will happen along the way.