Frases de John Updike

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“Estamos más vivos cuando estamos enamorados.”

“Las malas hierbas no saben que son malas hierbas.”

“Ese es el problema de preocuparse por alguien, comienza a sentirse sobreprotector. Entonces comienzas a sentirte abarrotado.”

“La cultura brasileña refleja más la africana que la americana. En los EE. UU. tenemos el jazz y casi que sólo eso. No existen personajes como Machado de Assis, un mulato considerado uno de los más grandes escritores del país.”

“Cuatro años de Harvard fueron suficientes. Todavía tengo mucho que aprender, pero se me ha dado la noción liberadora de que ahora puedo enseñarme a mí mismo.”

“El sexo es como el dinero, sólo 'demasiado' es suficiente.”

“Le da la sensación de estar rodeado de libertad, de oxígeno. Tothero es como un remolino de aire, y el edificio en el que se encuentra, las calles del pueblo, no son más que escaleras y pasadizos del espacio. Es tan perfecta y coherente la libertad en que se ha convertido el desorden del mundo gracias al simple estallido de su decisión, que todos los caminos parecen buenos, todos los movimientos serán caricias para su piel, y ni un solo átomo de su felicidad se alteraría si Tothero le dijera que en lugar de ir a una cita con dos chicas iban a reunirse con dos machos cabríos, o que no iban a Brewer sino al Tíbet".”

“Hay una cristalización que continúa en un poema que el joven puede sacar, pero que el hombre de mediana edad no puede.”

“... "Esa enfermedad que tiene hace un trabajo horrible en ti. Tus pulmones se llenan".”

“Eres cínico”

“No sabes lo que no sabes.”

“El uno mismo esencial es inocente, y cuando prueba su propia inocencia sabe que vive para siempre.”

“Su voz es apresurada, para mantenerse al día con su cerebro.”

“Ser capaz de escribir se convierte en una especie de escudo, una forma de esconderse, una forma de transformar demasiado instantáneamente el dolor en miel.”

“El olor a buen consejo siempre hace que Rabbit quiera correr hacia el otro lado.”

“Ahora que tengo sesenta años, veo por qué la idea de la sabiduría de los ancianos ha pasado de la moneda.”

“[eres una mujer en la televisión en la rueda de la fortuna] Ella te enorgullece de ser un mamífero de dos patas.”

“Los automóviles solían tener formas tan elegantes, como los aviones, cuando el combustible era barato, veinticinco centavos por galón.”

“La celebridad es una máscara que se come en la cara.”

“[en el hospital, Janice hablando con el Dr. Olman en presencia de Harry en la sala] "¿Qué le pasa exactamente a su corazón?"”

“That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.”

“[Nelson, to Annabelle] "The misery of the world," he says, reaching into himself to overcome her resistance. "That's what I kept thinking during my group this morning – the pity of everything, all of us, these confused souls trying so pathetically hard to break out of the fog – to see through our compulsions, our needs as they chew us up…"”

“Writers take words seriously — perhaps the last professional class that does — and they struggle to steer their own through the crosswinds of meddling editors and careless typesetters and obtuse and malevolent reviewers into the lap of the ideal reader.”

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

“Late in the game as it is, you keep trying.”

“…This is a hideous thing. None of us will ever be the same.”

“You don't know what you don't know.”

“[Nelson, re. Annabelle] …"she wants what everybody wants. She wants love."”

“[Nelson] "…One nice thing about Florida, it makes Pennsylvania look unspoiled."”

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

“He learned this much selling cars: offer the customer something he doesn't want, to make what he half-wants look better.”

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

“[Thelma] "…We're too old to keep being foolish."”

“The past is the past," Harry goes on, "you got to live in the present. … It's the only way to think. When you're my age, you'll see it. At my age if you carried all the misery you've seen on your back you'd never get up in the morning.”

“[Janice] Looking back from this distance, she can't think any more that Harry was all to blame for their early troubles, he had just been trying life on too: life and sex and making babies and finding out who you are.”

“America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.”

“… Cocaine. The stuff is everywhere.”

“[coming away from the doctor's after a check-up] Get interested is the advice, but in truth you are interested in less and less. It's Nature's way.”

“[Ronnie to Nelson] "For a guy who snorted an entire car agency up his nose, you're one to talk about con games."”

“If men do not keep on speaking terms with children, they cease to be men, and become merely machines for eating and for earning money.”

“Charlie asks her for a Perrier with lime. She says that San Pellegrino is what they have. He says it's all the same to him. Fancy water is fancy water.”

“Now that I am sixty, I see why the idea of elder wisdom has passed from currency.”

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

“At last, small witches, goblins, hags,
And pirates armed with paper bags,
Their costumes hinged on safety pins,
Go haunt a night of pumpkin grins.”

“Women: you never know which side they want to dance on.”

“Hard to believe God is always listening, never gets bored.”

“[Nelson] "… I get none of the things a man's supposed to get from a wife."
"What are those?" Janice is truly interested; she has never heard a man spell it out.
He makes a cross evasive face. "You know – don't play naïve. Reassurance. Affection. Make the guy think he's great even if he isn't."”

“When she was a girl nobody had money but people had dreams.”

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