All John Updike Quotes
- ...but with his mother there's no question of liking him they're not even in a way separate people he began in her stomach and if… Began
- Wickedness was like food: once you got started it was hard to stop; the gut expanded to take in more and more. Expanded
- What is the past, after all, but a vast sheet of darkness in which a few moments, pricked apparently at random, shine? All
- A woman’s beauty lies, not in any exaggeration of the specialized zones, nor in any general harmony that could be worked out by means of… Aesthetic
- Children are not a zoo of entertainingly exotic creatures, but an array of mirrors in which the human predicament leaps out at us. Array
- It is easy to love people in memory; the hard thing is to love them when they are there in front of you. Easy
- So much love, too much love, it is our madness, it is rotting us out, exploding us like dandelion polls. Dandelion
- We were all brought up to want things and maybe the world isn't big enough for all that wanting. I don't know. I don't know… All
- That's the trouble with caring about anybody, you begin to feel overprotective. Then you begin to feel crowded. Anybody
- …he is unlike the other customers. They sense it too, and look at him with hard eyes, eyes like little metal studs pinned into the… All
- But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark. Car
- Having children is something we think we ought to do because our parents did it, but when it is over the children are just other… Children
- If she’d been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem. Been
- Being able to write becomes a kind of shield, a way of hiding, a way of too instantly transforming pain into honey. Able
- Women, fire in their crotch, won't burn out, begin by fighting off pricks, end by going wild hunting for one that still works. Begin
- Suddenly summoned to witness something great and horrendous, we keep fighting not to reduce it to our own smallness. Fighting
- There is this quality, in things, of the right way seeming wrong at first. Firsts
- We are cruel enough without meaning to be. Cruel
- I like old men. They can be wonderful bastards because they have nothing to lose. The only people who can be themselves are babies and… Babies
- I once did something right. I played first-rate basketball. I really did. And after you're first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes… Basketball
- All love is betrayal, in that it flatters life. The loveless man is best armed. All
- There is no doubt that I have lots of words inside me; but at moments, like rush-hour traffic at the mouth of a tunnel, they… Doubt
- Sun and moon, sun and moon, time goes. Goes
- Figure out where you're going before you go there: he was told that a long time ago. Ago
- Time is our element, not a mistaken invader. Element