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| The Blues Brothers (1980) |
"'I want Garp,' Alice said.
'I''m sorry that you can't have him,' Helen said.
'I'm thorry, Helen,' Alice said. ...
Time, Garp knew, would ease everything. Time would also prove him wrong about Alice's writing. She may have had a pretty voice but she couldn't complete anything; she never finished her second novel, not in all the years that the Garps would know the Fletchers--or in all the years after. She could say everything beautifully, but--as Garp remarked to Helen, when he was finally exasperated with Alice--she couldn't get to the end of anything. She couldn't thtop. ...
... And perhaps what remained of the friendship between the Garps and the Fletchers was actually saved by the Fletchers' having to move away. This way, the couples saw each other about twice a year; distance diffused what might have been hard feelings. Alice could speak her flawless prose to Garp--in letters. The temptation to touch each other, even to bash their shopping carts together, was removed from them, and they all settled into being the kind of friends many old friends become: that is, they were friends when they heard from each other--or when, occasionally, they got together. And when they were not in touch, they did not think of one another."
The World According to Garp, John Irving