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101 " I’m not afraid, but I’m very nervous. "
― John Irving , A Prayer for Owen Meany
102 " 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 – toward an infinity of unsatisfying, and disagreeable endings. "
103 " when however small a measure of jealousy is mixed with misunderstanding, there is always going to be trouble. "
104 " Owen Meany believed that “coincidence” was a stupid, shallow refuge sought by stupid, shallow people who were unable to accept the fact that their lives were shaped by a terrifying and awesome design – more powerful and unstoppable than the Yankee Flyer. (a train) "
105 " He also knew that rivals are best unmanned by being ignored. "
106 " I have learned that the consequences of our past actions are always interesting; I have learned to view the present with a forward-looking eye. "
107 " It's a no-win argument - that business of what we're born with and what our environment does to us. And it's a boring argument, because it simplifies the mysteries that attend both our birth and our growth. "
108 " Owen meany who rarely wasted words and who had the conversation-stopping habit of dropping remarks like coins into a deep pool of water... remarks that sank, like truth, to the bottom of the pool where they would remain untouchable. "
109 " LAST NITE I HAD A DREAM. NOW I KNOW FOUR THINGS. I KNOW THAT MY VOICE DOESN’T CHANGE – BUT I STILL DON’T KNOW WHY. I KNOW THAT I AM GOD’S INSTRUMENT. I KNOW WHEN I’M GOING TO DIE – AND NOW A DREAM HAS SHOWN ME HOW I’M GOING TO DIE. I’M GOING TO BE A HERO! I TRUST THAT GOD WILL HELP ME, BECAUSE WHAT I’M SUPPOSED TO DO LOOKS VERY HARD. "
110 " As it was, things went from bad to worse, as they often will when amateurs are involved in an activity that they perform in bad temper – or in a hurry. "
111 " Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently. "
112 " (Baseball) is a game with a lot of waiting in it; it is a game with increasingly heightened anticipation of increasingly limited action "
113 " It seems to me that people who don’t learn as easily as others suffer from a kind of learning disability—there is something different about the way they comprehend unfamiliar material—but I fail to see how this disability is improved by psychiatric consultation. What seems to be lacking is a technical ability that those of us called ‘good students’ are born with. Someone should concretely study these skills and teach them. What does a shrink have to do with the process? "
114 " I don't want you to describe to me—not ever—what you were doing to that poor boy to make him sound like that; but if you ever do it again, please cover his mouth with your hand. "
115 " I think that was when the headmaster realized he had lost; he realized then that he was finished. Because, what could he do? Was he going to tell us to stop praying? We kept our heads bowed; and we kept praying. Even as awkward as he was, the Rev. Mr. Merrill had made it clear to us that there was no end to praying for Owen Meany. "
116 " There was no manifestation of contemporary culture that did not indicate to my grandmother how steadfast was the nation's decline, how merciless our mental and moral deterioration, how swiftly all-embracing our final decadence. I never saw her read a book again; but she referred to books often - as if they were shrines and cathedrals of learning that television had plundered and then abandoned. "
117 " THERE'S NO MONKEY BUSINESS ABOUT THIS ELECTION,' he told the voters. 'IF YOU'RE ENOUGH OF AN ASSHOLE TO VOTE FOR NIXON, YOUR DUMB VOTE WILL BE COUNTED––JUST LIKE ANYBODY ELSE! "
118 " MADE FOR TELEVISION. "
119 " There's nothing as scary as the future. "
120 " We don't enjoy giving directions in New Hampshire-we tend to think if you don't know where you're going, you don't belong where you are. "