“Sigmund Freud was a novelist with a scientific background. He just did...” — John Irving Quote

“Sigmund Freud was a novelist with a scientific background. He just didn’t know he was a novelist. All those damn psychiatrists after him, they didn’t know he was a novelist either.”

“Of all the things you choose in life, you don't get to choose what your nightmares are. You don't pick them; they pick you.”

“I think there is often a 'what if' proposition that gets me thinking about all my novels.”

“I do know where I'm going and it's just a matter of finding the language to get there.”

“I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.”

“You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.”

“To be the first aid in someone's wounds, that's the highest sanctity, as well as the right science.”

“A lot of comedic things are a real science - comedy has so many layers that I, at least, didn't see before working inside of it.”

“Magic is just all science at once.”

“Individual organ of human brain makes individual decision for working of brain and driving behavior in humans.”

“Atoms, the building blocks of so-called matter, however much they might seem to be physically circumscribed, aren’t actually like tiny billiard balls. That’s kindergarten science.”

“Finish one work at a time and complete it till last.”