John Irving

A Prayer For Owen Meany - John Irving

“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.” (Pg 135)

“Good friends are nothing to each other if they are not supportive.” (Pg 253)

“Rituals are comforting; rituals combat loneliness.” (Pg 280)

“God doesn’t love us because we’re smart or because we’re good. We’re stupid and we’re bad and God loves us anyway.” (Pg 310)

“If you’re a victim, the world will use you.” (Pg 314)

“Faith takes practice.” (Pg 341)

“Maybe that’s what faith is – exactly that contentment, even facing the future.” (Pg 358)

“The only way you can get Americans to notice anything is to tax them or draft them or kill them.” (Pg 431)

“Rivals are best unmanned by being ignored.” (Pg 434)

“Television so shamelessly sentimentalizes and romanticizes death that it makes the living feel they have missed something – just by staying alive.” (Pg 442)

“Well now you know how I feel about God. I cant see him – but I absolutely know he is there.” (Pg 451)

“I don’t believe everything that pops into my head – faith is a little more selective than that.” (Pg 472)

“If you care about something, you have to protect it – if you’re lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.” (Pg 502)

“Never confuse faith, or belief – of any kind – with something even remotely intellectual.” (Pg 519)

“It’s easier for you to just accept it. Belief is not something you have felt, and then not felt; you haven’t lived with belief, and with unbelief. It’s easier for you. You haven’t ever been full of faith, and full of doubt. Something just strikes you as a miracle, and you believe it. For me, it’s not that simple.” (Pg 524)

“But miracles don’t cause belief – real miracles don’t make faith out of thin air; you have to already have faith in order to believe in real miracles.” (Pg 524)

“It’s not God who’s fucked up, it’s the screamers who say they believe in him and who claim to pursue their ends in his holy name!” (Pg 545)

“For although I believe I now what the real miracles are, my belief in God disturbs and unsettles me much more than not believing ever did; unbelief seems vastly harder to me now than belief does – but belief poses so many unanswerable questions!” (Pg 571)

“Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean – make sure they know what they mean!” (Pg 572)