John Updike

Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them. ↗

— John Updike

#dreams #incite #nature #possibility #them

Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and a learner. ↗

— John Updike

#consist #every #learner #marriage #peasant

Each morning my characters greet me with misty faces willing, though chilled, to muster for another day's progress through the dazzling quicksand the marsh of blank paper. ↗

— John Updike

#blank #blank paper #characters #chilled #day

The essential support and encouragement comes from within, arising out of the mad notion that your society needs to know what only you can tell it. ↗

— John Updike

#comes #encouragement #essential #know #mad

Existence itself does not feel horrible; it feels like an ecstasy, rather, which we have only to be still to experience. ↗

— John Updike

#ecstasy #existence #experience #feel #feels

For male and female alike, the bodies of the other sex are messages signaling what we must do, they are glowing signifiers of our own necessities. ↗

— John Updike

#bodies #female #glowing #male #messages

Four years was enough of Harvard. I still had a lot to learn, but had been given the liberating notion that now I could teach myself. ↗

— John Updike

#could #enough #four #given #had

From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few. ↗

— John Updike

#few #infancy #paltry #secrets #shame

Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading. ↗

— John Updike

#either #government #madness #magnitude #organized

Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better. ↗

— John Updike

#activity #any #becomes #better #cares