A writer's job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories.
John IrvingRead
We often need to lose sight of our priorities in order to see them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Sometimes, stepping back allows us to better understand what truly matters to us.
This quote by John Irving suggests that losing focus on our immediate priorities can provide us with a clearer perspective on what is genuinely important. By detaching ourselves from our daily distractions and obligations, we create space for deeper reflection, enabling us to realign our actions with our core values and aspirations.
Themes
PerspectivePrioritiesReflectionClarityImportance
In practice
Example use cases
In a team meeting, to emphasize the importance of reevaluating our goals.
More from John Irving
All quotes βNo one but me ever put a hand on me to feel that baby. No one wanted to put his ear against it and listen...You shouldn't have a baby if there's no one who wants to feel it kick or listen to it move.
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It's not very interesting to establish sympathy for people who, on the surface, are instantly sympathetic. I guess I'm always attracted to people who, if their lives were headlines in a newspaper, you might not be very sympathetic about them.
John IrvingRead
It is an important distinction to note that she looked not only as if she had taken good care of herself, but that she had good reason to have done so. (...) She looked to be in such total possession of her life that only the most confident men could continue to look at her if she looked back at them. Even in bus stations, she was a woman who was stared at only until she looked back.
John IrvingRead
I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice. Not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God. I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.
John IrvingRead
I will tell you what is my overriding perception of the last twenty years: that we are a civilization careening toward a succession of anticlimaxes β toward an infinity of unsatisfying, and disagreeable endings.
John IrvingRead
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