Jenny Fields discovered that you got more respect from shocking other people than you got from trying to live your own life with a little privacy. - John Irving

Never confuse faith, or belief — of any kind — with something even remotely intellectual.

"Life," Garp wrote, "is sadly not structured like a good old-fashioned novel. Instead an end occurs when those who are meant to peter out have petered out. All that is left is memory. But even a nihilist has memory."

Melony put herself straight to bed without her dinner. Mrs. Grogan, worried about her, went to Melony’s bed and felt her forehead, which was feverish, but Mrs. Grogan could not coax Melony to drink anything. All Melony said was, ‘He broke his promise.’ Later, she said, ‘Homer Wells has left St. Cloud’s.’
‘You have a little temperature, dear,’ said Mrs. Grogan, but when Homer Wells didn’t come to read Jane Eyre aloud that evening, Mrs. Grogan started paying closer attention. She allowed Melony to read to the girls that evening; Melony’s voice was oddly flat and passionless. Melony’s reading from Jane Eyre depressed Mrs. Grogan – especially when she read this part:
…it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it…
Why, the girl didn’t bat an eye! Mrs. Grogan observed.