John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire

"...the single ingredient in American literature that distinguishes it from other literatures of the world is a kind of giddy, illogical hopefulness. It is quite technically sophisticated while remaining ideologically naïve."

"A terrorist, I think, is simply another kind of pornographer. The pornographer pretends he is disgusted by his work; the terrorist pretends he is uninterested in the means. The ends, they say, are what they care about. But they are both lying. Ernst loved his pornography; Ernst worshiped the means. It is never the ends that matter -- it is only the means that matter. The terrorist and the pornographer are in it for the means. The means is everything to them. The blast of the bomb, the elephant position, the Schlagobers and blood -- they love it all. Their intellectual detachment is a fraud; their indifference is feigned. They both tell lies about having ‘higher purposes.’ A terrorist is a pornographer."

"Keep passing the open windows."

"People are like that ... They need to make their own worst experiences universal. It gives them a kind of support.’ And who can blame them? It is just infuriating to argue with someone like that; because of an experience that has denied them their humanity, they go around denying another kind of humanity in others, which is the truth of human variety -- it stands alongside our sameness."

"You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed."

"It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious."