Quotes from John Updike

The simplicity. Getting rid of something by giving it to itself. God Himself folded into the tiny adamant structure, Self-destined to a succession of explosions, the great slow gathering out of water and air and silicon: this is felt without words in the turn of the round hoe-handle in his palms. Now

little is more precious in an affair for a man than being welcomed into a house he has done nothing to support, or more momentous for the woman than this welcoming, this considered largesse, her house his, his on the strength of his cock alone, his cock and company, the smell and amusement and weight of him — no buying you with mortgage payments, no blackmailing you with shared children, but welcomed simply, into the walls of yourself, an admission dignified by freedom and equality.

and of AIDS. The virus too small to imagine travelling through our fluids, even a drop or two of saliva or cunt slime, and unlocking our antibodies with its little picks, so that our insides lose their balance and we topple into pneumonia, into starvation. Love and death, they can't be pried apart anymore.

The day is declining through the white afternoon to the long blue spring evening. He drives past a corner where someone is practicing on a trumpet

He] languidly went through the motions, like a disbelieving angel, misplaced in all this adult foolishness.

The thought of these people having the bold idea of leaving their homes to come here and pray pleases and reassures Rabbit, and moves him to close his own eyes and bow his head with a movement so tiny that Ruth won't notice. Help me, Christ. Forgive me. Take me down the way. Bless Ruth, Janice, Nelson, my mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Springer, and the unborn baby. Forgive Tothero and all the others. Amen.

Your heart lifts forever through that blank sky.

The good ones develop give. In all the green world nothing feels as good as a woman's good nature.

The only way to get somewhere, you know, is to figure out where you're going before you go there.

Odat? cu nenorocirea, vine È™i o uÈ™urare, o înseninare: porÈ›iuni vaste ale vieÈ›ii tale sunt date la o parte, devin dintr-odat? neînsemnate.

Her face, seen so close, is built of great flats of skin pressed clean of color except for a burnish of yellow that adds to their size mineral weight, the weight of some pure porous stone carted straight from quarries to temples. Words come from this monumental Ruth in the same scale, as massive wheels rolling to the porches of his ears, as mute coins spinning in the light. "You have it pretty good.

When he strays from straddling the mane of weeds, brambles rake his painted sides.