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John Updike
218 quotes
“Our brains are no longer conditioned for reverence and awe. We cannot imagine a Second Coming that would not be cut down to size by the televised evening news, or a Last Judgment not subject to pages of holier-than-Thou second-guessing in The New York Review of Books.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we try in good faith to believe in materialism, in the exclusive reality of the physical, we are asking our selves to step aside; we are disavowing the very realm where we exist and where all things precious are kept — the realm of emotion and conscience, of memory and intention and sensation.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This airport has been designed with big windows viewing the runways, so if there's a crash everybody can feast upon it with their own eyes. The fireball, the fuselage doing a slow skidding twirl, shedding its wings.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whenever somebody tells me to do something my instinct's always to do the opposite. It's got me into a lot of trouble, but I've had a lot of fun.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you're retired, you get into your routines and other people, even so-called loved ones, become a strain.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Driving is boring," Rabbit pontificates, "but it's what we do. Most of American life is driving somewhere and then driving back wondering why the hell you went.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...Cocaine. The stuff is everywhere.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...If you could ever get the poor to vote in this country, you'd have socialism. But people want to think rich. That's the genius of the capitalist system: either you're rich, or you want to be, or you think you ought to be.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I mean," he says, "how the hell do you think it feels? Sitting there and having the plane explode?”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...there ought to be a law that we change identities and families every ten years or so.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You don't know what you don't know.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Figure out where you're going before you go there: he was told that a long time ago.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He learned this much selling cars: offer the customer something he doesn't want, to make what he half-wants look better.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Nelson] "...One nice thing about Florida, it makes Pennsylvania look unspoiled.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who wants to fish, if you're halfway civilised? Dangling some dead meat in front of some poor brainless thing and then pulling him up by a hook in the roof of his mouth? Cruellest thing people do is fish.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your children's losing battle with time seems even sadder than your own.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Re Florida] Just not being senile is considered great down here.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Judy, 8, is watching TV] He tells Judy, "Better pack it in, sweetie. Another big day tomorrow: we're going to go to the beach and sailing." But his voice comes out listless, and perhaps that is the saddest loss time brings, the lessening of excitement about anything.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rabbit feels as if the human race is a vast colourful jostling bristling parade in which he is limping and falling behind.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When she was a girl nobody had money but people had dreams.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She closes her eyes and wordlessly thinks of all the misery sex has caused the world...”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you feel irresistable, you're hard to resist.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The papers exaggerate. They exaggerate everything, just to sell papers. The government exaggerates, to keep our minds off what morons they are.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Nelson] "...I get none of the things a man's supposed to get from a wife.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[at the hospital, Janice speaking to Dr Olman in Harry's presence in the ward] "What's wrong with his heart, exactly?" Janice asks.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His wife is, it occurs to Harry, a channel that can't be switched. The same slightly too-high forehead, the same dumb stubborn slot of a mouth, day after day, same time, same station.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He didn't have a worry in the world back then. He was in paradise and didn't know it.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Harry, talking about the doctor who came to the ward and then went away.] "That guy has a thing about potato chips and hot dogs. If God didn't want us to eat salt and fat, why did He make them taste so good?”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Nelson, to Harry] "...I keep feeling hassled.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[about the past, and Mary Ann, before Harry went to do his two years in the army] Maybe she sensed something about him. A loser. Though at eighteen he looked like a winner.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Thelma] "...You make your own punishments in life, I honest to God believe that. You get exactly what you deserve. God sees to it.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Harry, to Thelma, about Janet] "She never really figured out how the world is put together but she's still working at it.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Thelma] "...We're too old to keep being foolish.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can't say anything honest to women, they have minds like the FBI.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He supposes they pretty much have the picture. Most people do, in life. People know more than they let on.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...the Japanese interest him professionally. How do they and the Germans do it, when America's going down the tubes?”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Charlie asks her for a Perrier with lime. She says that San Pellegrino is what they have. He says it's all the same to him. Fancy water is fancy water.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Charlie interrupts impatiently, "Pain is where it's at for punks. Mutilation, self-hatred, slam dancing. For these kids today, ugly is beautiful. That's their way of saying what a lousy world we're giving them. No more rain forests. Toxic waste. You know the drill.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Dr Breit] "It's irrational, but so's the human species.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now nuns have blended into everybody else or else faded away. Vocations drying up, nobody wants to be selfless any more, everybody wants their fun. No more nuns, no more rabbis. No more good people, waiting to have their fun in the afterlife. The thing about the afterlife, it kept this life within bounds somehow, like the Russians. Now there's just Japan, and technology, and the profit motive, and getting all you can while you can.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“..."That disease he has does an awful job on you. Your lungs fill up.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is a hill that gets steeper the more you climb.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mim has hung up. She has a life to get on with.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...he tries to view his life as a brick of sorts, set in place with a slap in 1933 and hardening ever since, just one life in rows and walls and blocks of lives.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[At news that Nelson got himself a counsellor] Harry feels a jealous, resentful pang. His boy is being taken over. His fatherhood hasn't been good enough. They're calling in the professionals.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...a sense of defeat the years have brought back to him, after what seemed for a while to be triumphs.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is noise.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[A grandchild barely able to remember Harry's own mother] But can Ma be no more than that in this child's memory? Do we dwindle so fast to next to nothing?”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Something about being helpless in bed, people hit you up for sympathy. They've got you where they want you.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source