A Prayer for Owen Meany — Vocabulary
John Irving
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After that, the first lieutenant cleared his throat and the congregation could hear him more distinctly.†p.577.4alternate pages39 more

Those two devotions need not necessarily yield an unexciting life, but my life has been determinedly unexciting; my life is a reading list.†p.580.7alternate pages6 more

The subject of "concerned" parents and alumni yielded an especially lively and controversial column for The Voice.†p.294.6alternate pages6 more

Now that it mattered to him, to get the timing of his leap adjusted to my lifting him even higher, why couldn't I simply indulge him without criticizing him?†p.308.9alternate pages13 more

She was just in time; Harold's mother entered the vestibule as Dan and I were leaving the parish house.†p.235.9alternate pages19 more

How the congregation straggled out of the nave; how they hated to have their rituals revised without warning.†p.231.1alternate pages9 more

He would also help me begin my Master's thesis on Thomas Hardy.p.527.6alternate pages10 more

Here I am, talking about nuclear war and the usual, self-righteous, American arrogance, and Canon Mackie wants to talk about me.†p.228.2alternate pages9 more

My grandmother was outraged that there were people who actually dared to condescend to her—to treat her like some provincial fussbudget.†p.112.9alternate pages8 more

Hester's damage to the rose garden was surely of the stature of a tradition; her absence, and Owen's, seemed ominous to me.†p.512.4alternate pages8 more

Therefore, we walked soberly around Harvard Square—a part of Cambridge that is not necessarily enhanced by sobriety.†p.348.8alternate pages7 more

A shudder coursed through Barb Wiggin's body; she gave a corresponding jerk of her shoulders, distracting her from her task.p.220.1alternate pages2 more

The reason the Eastmans weren't going to the Caribbean was that Hester had been corresponding with a black boatman who had proposed a rendezvous in the British Virgin Islands; Hester had involved herself with this particular black boatman the previous Christmas, in Tortola—when she'd been only fifteen!p.281.8alternate pages2 more

It would be a better story, I think, if Mr. Fish had been killed by the diaper truck—but every study of the gods, of everyone's gods, is a revelation of vengeance toward the innocent.p.9.4alternate pages5 more

—but when Mr. Morrison discovered that he had no lines, that the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come never speaks, he became contemptuous of the part; he threatened to quit, but then remained in the role with a vengeance, sneering and scoffing at poor Scrooge's questions, and…p.181.5alternate pages5 more

Lydia's nodding was the most detectable manifestation of how her senility was in advance of my grandmother's senility—or so my grandmother had observed, privately, to me.†p.194.3alternate pages5 more

The countenances of many a parishioner reflected shock and insult, as if the Lord Jesus had just spat in their faces—to deem them sacrilegious.†p.232.1alternate pages4 more

And at another memorable moment, commenting on her son-in-law's affair with her daughter's 'greatest friend,' she rationalized: "If John is going to deceive Constance, it's nice it should be somebody we all know."p.110.2alternate pages3 more

I told my Grade 12 English class that they should reread what Hardy called the first "phase" of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the part called "The Maiden"; although I had drawn their attention to Hardy's fondness for foreshadowing, the class was especially sleepyheaded at spotting these devices.†p.312.6alternate pages1 more

And so we sang our hearts out for Owen Meany—aware that while the liturgy for the dead might be characterized by joy, our so-called "human grief" did not make us "unchristian."†p.573.3alternate pages3 more