760 Quotes by John Updike

People go around mourning the death of God; it’s the death of sssin that bothers me. Without ssin, people aren’t people any more, they’re just ssoul-less sheep.

All these prohibitions old people think up. I think people should be free to do what they want unless it’s hurting someone else.

A computer and a cat are somewhat alike – they both purr, and like to be stroked, and spend a lot of the day motionless. They also have secrets they don’t necessarily share.

It’s not up to us what we learn, but merely whether we learn through joy or through pain.

Right and wrong aren’t dropped from the sky. We. We make them. Against misery. Invariably, Harry, invariably – he grows confident of his ability to negotiate long words – misery follows their disobedience. Not our own, often at first not our own.

The artist brings something into the world that didn’t exist before, and he does it without destroying something else.

Do you think God wants a waterfall to be a tree?

I’m not against TV; I don’t go on the morning talk shows because I’m not invited. If I was, I might go.

It’s a man’s world, they say; but in its daily textures it is a world created by and for women.