John Updike (1932 – 2009)
American novelist, poet, critic and short-story writer.
If society is the prison, families are the cells, with no time off for good behavior. Good behavior in fact tends to lengthen the sentence.
[Harry to Janice, about the financial situation] "...You're in real trouble."
Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being “somebody,” to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation. One can either see or be seen.
An affair wants to spill, to share its glory with the world. No act is so private it does not seek applause.
Hard to believe God is always listening, never gets bored.
[Mim, to Nelson, after discussing Annabelle's stepfather being dead] "More and more is dead, are you old enough to notice? Vegas is dead, the way it was. [...] Now it's herds. Herds and herds of Joe Nobodies. Bozos. The hoi pollio, running up credit-card debt. Gambling is legal in half the states so they've built these huge moron-catchers along the Strip, all the way to the airport. A Pyramid, the Eiffel Tower, Venice – it's all here, Nelson, all for the morons. It's depressing as hell."
[Pru, to Harry] She tells him, "You were one of the things I liked about Nelson. Maybe I thought Nelson would grow into somebody like you."
A narrative is like a room on whose walls a number of false doors have been painted; while within the narrative, we have many apparent choices of exit, but when the author leads us to one particular door, we know it is the right one because it opens.
Zeus had loved his old friend, and lifted him up, and set him among the stars as the constellation Sagittarius. Here, in the Zodiac, now above, now below the horizon, he assists in the regulation of our destinies, though in this latter time few living mortals cast their eyes respectfully toward Heaven, and fewer still sit as students to the stars.
Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he had to say in his works.
Mim has hung up. She has a life to get on with.
In show business you learn to let it slide off your back. You know, fuck 'em. Otherwise you'd kill yourself.
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.
You can't say anything honest to women, they have minds like the FBI.
Like Ronnie said, we're alone. All we have is family, for what it's worth.
The great thing about the dead, they make space.
In the old movies, yes, there always was the happy ending and order was restored. As it is in Shakespeare's plays. It's no disgrace to, in the end, restore order. And punish the wicked and, in some way, reward the righteous.
"Tell me, Nelson, I'm just curious. How does it feel to have smoked up your parents' house in crack?"
When you're retired, you get into your routines and other people, even so-called loved ones, become a strain.
No matter how hard you climb, there are always the rich above you, who got there without effort. Lucky stiffs, holding you down, making you discontent so you buy more of the crap advertised on television.