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John Updike

John Updike Quotes

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Famous John Updike Quotes

“In fact we do not try to picture the afterlife, nor is it our selves in our nervous tics and optical flecks that we wish to perpetuate; it is the self as the window on the world that we can't bear to thinkof shutting. My mind when I was a boy of ten or eleven sent up its silent scream at the thought of future aeons -- at the thought of the cosmic party going on without me. The yearning for an afterlife is the opposite of selfish: it is love and praise of the world that we are privileged, in this complex interval of light, to witness and experience.”

WorldTryingMindSelfFactsLightWishPartyBoysBearsTenWindowOppositesPraiseSilentComplexesSelfishNervousWitnessScreamCosmicAfterlifeYearningPrivilegedElevenIntervalsTics
Author:John Updike
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“From the standpoint of a Middle Eastern citizen, Americans look like a bully forcing our way of life on the Islamic way of life. The notion of purity is very important in Islam, and a lot of the negative warlike actions taken against us have to do with our physical presence in the Middle East. Osama bin Laden was trying to get the American, or protesting the American military presence in Saudi Arabia. It's not surprising that our strong presence in Iraq has produced a wave of resistance anger, extreme anger in some cases, and a permissive atmosphere that allows these people to go undetected.”

PeopleTryingImportantActionStrongTakenMilitaryNegativeIslamWaveAtmospherePurityIslamicBullyEasternBin LadenOsama Bin Laden
Author:John Updike
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“When we try in good faith to believe in materialism, in the exclusive reality of the physical, we are asking our selves to step aside; we are disavowing the very realm where we exist and where all things precious are kept - the realm of emotion and conscience, of memory and intention and sensation.”

TryingBelieveSelfRealityGrowthMemoriesEmotionStepsConscienceAll ThingsAskingIntentionRealmsMaterialismSensationsConsumptionExclusiveGood Faith
Book:Self-consciousness: memoirs
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“Phyllis explained to him, trying to give of her deeper self, 'Don't you find it so beautiful, math? Like an endless sheet of gold chains, each link locked into the one before it, the theorems and functions, one thing making the next inevitable. It's music, hanging there in the middle of space, meaning nothing but itself, and so moving...'”

GivingTryingSelfBeautifulMovingNextSpaceOne ThingMiddleGoldFunctionMathematicsDeeperMathEndlessChainsInevitableLinksLockedSheetsTheoremsMeaning Nothing
Author:John Updike
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“I complain a lot. That's one way of coping. But I'm in a profession where nobody tells you to quit. No board of other partners tells you it's time to get your gold watch, and no physical claim is made on you like an athlete or an actress. So I try to plug along on the theory that I can still do it. I still keep trying to produce prose, and some poetry, in the hope that I can find something to say about being alive, this country, but generally the human condition.”

WayTryingHumansMadeStillsI CanCountryWatchesAliveConditionsProduceTheoryGoldClaimsAthleteActressesProfessionComplainingPartnersQuittingOne WayBoardsProseHuman ConditionKeep TryingCopingPlugs
Author:John Updike
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