John Updike Quotes

Mim, to Nelson, about Annabelle, aged 39 'This little nursie's not your problem. At thirty-nine, everybody's their own problem...'

John Updike

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• Burroughs called his greatest novel 'Naked Lunch,' by which he meant it's what you see on the end of a fork. Telling the truth. It's very difficult to do that in fiction because the whole process of writing fiction is a process of sidestepping the truth. I think he got very close to it, in his way, and I hope I've done the same in mine.

  

  J. G. Ballard
  • Writing
  • Done
  • Truth

• In Australia, kids play in American accents.

  

  Yael Stone
  • Kids
  • American
  • Play

• No matter what message you are about to deliver somewhere, whether it is holding out a hand of friendship, or making clear that you disapprove of something, is the fact that the person sitting across the table is a human being, so the goal is to always establish common ground.

  

  Madeleine Albright
  • Hand
  • Goal
  • Friendship

• I like boxes because of the secrets they hide.

  

  Kate Williams
  • Like
  • Secrets
  • Boxes

• It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members.

  

  E. B. White
  • Man
  • Planet
  • Club

• I do yoga, I do Bikram and I run, and I eat really healthy.

  

  Lady Gaga
  • Yoga
  • Healthy
  • Run

• Just because scientists have the knowledge to do it, the technology to do it, and some may even have a financial motive or other incentive to do it, does not make it right.

  

  Nathan Deal
  • May
  • Knowledge
  • Technology

• Whoever is for higher taxes, feel free to pay higher taxes.

  

  Adam Carolla
  • Free
  • Feel
  • Taxes

• Cancer is like a cockroach. It just comes back stronger. I'm tearing apart the immune system of the cockroach and seeing how it ticks. I've opened up my own pathology center.

  

  Eddie Van Halen Van Halen
  • Up
  • Cancer
  • Stronger

• A bad man is the sort who weeps every time he speaks of a good woman.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • Time
  • Good
  • Bad

• I met a number of young, striving, enterprising people in cities like Aligarh and Hubli. But the mental landscape of these towns is out of sync with their reality. Many of these towns are hellholes.

  

  Karan Mahajan
  • People
  • Reality
  • Landscape

• And I have been able to establish this sort of decent reputation as being a decent character actor.

  

  Vincent D'Onofrio
  • Character
  • Actor
  • Reputation

• Why do you bother asking, when you know the answer and you also know that you don't intend to believe it?

  

  Orson Scott Card
  • Believe
  • Why

• Myth. Rape is a manifestation of male political and economic power. Fact. Any given black man is three times as likely to be reported a rapist as a white man. Do blacks suddenly have more political and economic power? Maybe rape does not derive from power, but rather from powerlessness.

  

  Warren Farrell
  • Power
  • Political
  • Black

• 'Salam aleikum.'

  

  Anthony Burgess

• Stolen sweets are always sweeter,Stolen kisses much completer,Stolen looks are nice in chapels,Stolen, stolen, be your apples.

  

  Leigh Hunt
  • Nice

• Fuck Radio Ethiopia man, I'm Radio Brooklyn!

  

  Lou Reed

• One must let the play happen to one; one must let the mind loose to respond as it will, to receive impressions, to sense rather than know, to gather rather than immediately understand.

  

  Edward Albee
  • Mind

• Sei giorni me n'andai matina e seraPer balze e per pendici orride e strane,Dove non via, dove sentier non era.

  

  Ludovico Ariosto

• Whatever a theologian regards as true must be false: there you have almost a criterion of truth.

  

  Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Truth
  • False
  • Regards

• Clearly, our underlying growth this year has been very much affected by increasingly difficult economic times and a tough competitive environment. Neither of those conditions is likely to change in the near-term

  

  George Fisher Cannibal Corpse
  • Change
  • Difficult
  • Economic

• Thought is valuable in proportion as it is generative.

  

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
  • Valuable
  • Proportion

• If you ask me, it'd be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it.

  

  Amory Lovins
  • Energy

• Mim, to Nelson, about Annabelle, aged 39 'This little nursie's not your problem. At thirty-nine, everybody's their own problem...'

  

  John Updike