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The Hotel New Hampshire

John Irving

Top 10 Best Quotes

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

“Keep passing the open windows.”

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

“So we dream on. Thus we invent our lives. We give ourselves a sainted mother, we make our father a hero; and someone’s older brother and someone’s older sister – they become our heroes too. We invent what we love and what we fear. There is always a brave lost brother – and a little lost sister, too. We dream on and on: the best hotel, the perfect family, the resort life. And our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them… That’s what happens, like it or not. And because that’s what happens, this is what we need: we need a good, smart bear… Coach Bob knew it all along: you’ve got to get obsessed and stay obsessed. You have to keep passing the open windows.”

“You take every opportunity given you in this world, even if you have too many opportunities. One day, the opportunities stop, you know.”

“Human beings are remarkable - at what we can learn to live with. If we couldn't get strong from what we lose, and what we miss, and what we want and can't have, then we couldn't ever get strong enough, could we? What else makes us strong?”

“Just when you begin thinking of yourself as memorable, you run into someone who can't even remember having met you”

“Safer than we are.” I told Franny. “Safer than love.” “let me tell ya kid,” Franny said to me, squeezing my hand. “Everything’s safer than love.”

“If we couldn't get strong from what we lose, and what we miss, and what we want and can't have, then we couldn't ever get strong enough.”

“Lilly was not crazy. She left a serious suicide note. 'Sorry,' said the note. 'Just not big enough.”

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Book Keywords:

humor, wrestling, life, life-lessons, learn-it-live-it-love-it, work, suicide, perseverance, art

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