John Updike Quotes

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

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Quotes to Explore

• I do a lot of speaking about energy and environment. But that's more a second job than a hobby. Hobby-wise, I love the outdoors - hiking, biking, kayaking, swimming, scuba diving. Because I spend almost all of my life in front of a screen, time in nature is especially important, I think.

  

  Ramez Naam
  • Life
  • Time
  • Important

• My idols are Janis Joplin and Annie Lennox, who are neither of them from the typical pop culture.

  

  Natalie Cole
  • Culture
  • Pop
  • Pop Culture

• It's interesting to have two totally unlikable characters as the love interests on a show.

  

  Samira Wiley
  • Love
  • Interesting
  • Two

• It's my private life, and it's not up for grabs.

  

  Sam Shepard
  • Life
  • Up
  • Private Life

• By the time you know what to do, you're too old to do it.

  

  Ted Williams
  • Time
  • You
  • Know

• Statesmanship is harder than politics. Politics is the art of getting along with people, whereas statesmanship is the art of getting along with politicians.

  

  Fletcher Knebel
  • People
  • Art
  • Politics

• You don't need to wear Spanx if you buy my clothes. The dress, the trousers, the pencil skirt - they should do the work.

  

  L'Wren Scott
  • Work
  • Clothes
  • Dress

• Those market researchers... are playing games with you and me and with this entire country. Their so-called samples of opinion are no more accurate or reliable than my grandmother's big toe was when it came to predicting the weather.

  

  Dan Rather
  • Country
  • Opinion
  • Games

• Music was definitely a way out. Instead of playing basketball, I was going to recording studios.

  

  Flo Rida
  • Music
  • Way
  • Basketball

• There is probably a perverse pride in my administration... that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who's occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can't be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.

  

  Barack Obama
  • Remember
  • Success
  • Opinion

• I'd say it's even harder to cater to Hispanics than to the lesbian or gay community. We're so culturally separated: Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Venezuelans. We're all so different.

  

  Carlos Ponce
  • Different
  • Community
  • Gay

• I'm not pretending to be ingenuous; I know what I'm doing.

  

  Barbara Kingsolver
  • Know
  • Doing
  • Pretending

• When I'm writing, I'm in an isolation chamber. I'm not one to think about that outside world stuff when I'm writing.

  

  Adam Mansbach
  • World
  • Writing
  • Isolation

• I never listened to the Grateful Dead as a teen; the only exposure I got was what came through the walls when my sister was listening to them.

  

  J. K. Simmons
  • Listening
  • Sister
  • Grateful

• The terrorists that we are up against today do not rely upon cell phones and SAT phones and emails. They rely on couriers. You cannot intercept what a courier is telling somebody.

  

  Oliver North
  • Up
  • Today
  • Phones

• I know all the books of the Bible.

  

  Hailey Bieber
  • Know
  • Bible
  • Books

• I think being an Asian woman has been more of an advantage than a disadvantage. It helps me stand out from the rest of the entertainers out there. Again, being from such an ethnically diverse place like New York, you get comfortable and confident with being different!

  

  Nadia Ali
  • Different
  • Rest
  • Woman

• When people get placed upon a pedestal - when they start chasing after that person on the pedestal - they become mannequin-like.

  

  Ichiro Suzuki
  • People
  • Person
  • Start

• He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again; From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain.

  

  Percy Bysshe Shelley
  • World
  • Men
  • Heart

• Do nondoing, strive for nonstriving, savor the flavorless, regard the small as important, make much of little, repay enmity with virtue; plan for difficulty when it is still easy, do the great while it is still small. The most difficult things in the world must be done while they are easy; the greatest things in the world must be done while they are small.

  

  Lao Tzu
  • World
  • Virtue
  • Enmity

• Here we stand in the middle of this new world with our primitive brain, attuned to the simple cave life, with terrific forces at our disposal, which we are clever enough to release, but whose consequences we cannot comprehend.

  

  Albert Szent-Györgyi
  • Life
  • World
  • Simple

• Ringside seats mean you hear the breaking of ribs, the splattered cartilage of what was once the boxer's nose, the dislocation of the jaw, the horrifying 'ugggh' that the boxer utters milliseconds after receiving a crushing left hook to the solar plexus or kidneys or head.

  

  Dan Hill
  • Mean
  • Nose
  • Solar

• The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts Not of two lovers, but two loves the nests.

  

  John Donne

• 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
  • World
  • She
  • Together