John Updike
“Rain is grace; without rain, there would be no life.”
“Celebrity blinds; one can either see or be seen.”
“The essential self knows that it lives for ever.”
“When we try in good faith to believe in materialism, we are disavowing the very realm where we exist and where all things precious are kept.”
“Rain is the sky condescending to the earth.”
“Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he had to say in his works.”
“The creative writer uses his life as well as being its victim.”
“One of the satisfactions of fiction is the selective order it imposes upon the confusion of a lived life.”
“Writers take words seriously — perhaps the last professional class that does.”
“Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life.”
“Our brains are no longer conditioned for reverence and awe.”
“Existence itself does not feel horrible; it feels like an ecstasy, rather, which we have only to be still to experience.”
“Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.”
“The yearning for an afterlife is the opposite of selfish: it is love and praise for the world that we are privileged to witness and experience.”
“Truth should not be forced; it should simply manifest itself.”
“Looking foolish does the spirit good.”
“Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual position.”
“The essential self is innocent, and when it tastes its own innocence knows that it lives for ever.”
“Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.”
“Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.”