John Updike - Rabbit at Rest (1990)

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The papers exaggerate. They exaggerate everything, just to sell papers. The government exaggerates, to keep our minds off what morons they are.

John Updike
One thing he knows is if he had to give parts of his life back the last thing he'd give back is the fucking.

John Updike
Who wants to fish, if you're halfway civilised? Dangling some dead meat in front of some poor brainless thing and then pulling him up by a hook in the roof of his mouth? Cruellest thing people do is fish.

John Updike
Now nuns have blended into everybody else or else faded away. Vocations drying up, nobody wants to be selfless any more, everybody wants their fun. No more nuns, no more rabbis. No more good people, waiting to have their fun in the afterlife. The thing about the afterlife, it kept this life within bounds somehow, like the Russians. Now there's just Japan, and technology, and the profit motive, and getting all you can while you can.

John Updike
Figure out where you're going before you go there: he was told that a long time ago.

John Updike
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.

John Updike
Without the cold war, what's the point of being an American?

John Updike
... a sense of defeat the years have brought back to him, after what seemed for a while to be triumphs.

John Updike
She closes her eyes and wordlessly thinks of all the misery sex has caused the world...

John Updike
[at the hospital, Janice speaking to Dr Olman in Harry's presence in the ward] "What's wrong with his heart, exactly?" Janice asks.

John Updike
"Driving is boring," Rabbit pontificates, "but it's what we do. Most of American life is driving somewhere and then driving back wondering why the hell you went."

John Updike
[Harry having drawn at golf] The shape of his collapse clings to him. Who says the universe isn't soaked in disgrace?

John Updike
Women are actresses, tuning their part to each little audience.

John Updike
[Re Florida] Just not being senile is considered great down here.

John Updike
[re the human heart] That little electric twitch: without it we're so much rotting meat.

John Updike
A woman you've endured such a gnawing of desire for, you can't help bearing a little grudge against, when the ache is gone.

John Updike
Charlie interrupts impatiently, "Pain is where it's at for punks. Mutilation, self-hatred, slam dancing. For these kids today, ugly is beautiful. That's their way of saying what a lousy world we're giving them. No more rain forests. Toxic waste. You know the drill."

John Updike
[At news that Nelson got himself a counsellor] Harry feels a jealous, resentful pang. His boy is being taken over. His fatherhood hasn't been good enough. They're calling in the professionals.

John Updike
He supposes they pretty much have the picture. Most people do, in life. People know more than they let on.

John Updike
"Things change," says Mr Shimada. "Is world's sad secret."

John Updike
He could have gone over that night and faced the music but how much music is a man supposed to face?

John Updike
He didn't have a worry in the world back then. He was in paradise and didn't know it.

John Updike
You can't say anything honest to women, they have minds like the FBI.

John Updike
Of a woman on TV on 'Wheel of Fortune':
She makes you proud to be a two-legged mammal.

John Updike
You shouldn't sit in judgment of your parents. We did the best we could while being people too.

John Updike