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John Updike cytaty
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John Hoyer Updike – amerykański pisarz i poeta. Odznaczony Narodowym Medalem Sztuki.

Tematem jego książek było zazwyczaj życie przedstawicieli amerykańskiej protestanckiej klasy średniej z małego miasteczka. W swoich tekstach często zajmował się seksem, wiarą, śmiercią i ich wzajemnymi powiązaniami. Wikipedia  

✵ 18. Marzec 1932 – 27. Styczeń 2009   •   Natępne imiona John Hoyer Updike, Con Apdayk
John Updike Fotografia
John Updike: 247   Cytatów 0   Polubień

John Updike słynne cytaty

„Marzenia się spełniają. Bez tej możliwości natura nie podburzałaby nas do posiadania ich.”

John Updike

Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them. (ang.)

„Nikt nie może nigdzie dojść, jeśli skądś nie odszedł.”

John Updike

Źródło: Leksykon złotych myśli, wyboru dokonał Krzysztof Nowak, Warszawa 1998.

„Sukces bywa również karany: trzeba spotykać się z ludźmi, których przedtem można było ignorować.”

John Updike

„Ludzie mogą należeć do nas tylko we wspomnieniach.”

John Updike

„Dzisiaj młodzi mają więcej problemów, niż mieliśmy my - mówi Jack (…) Nie chodzi tylko o AIDS i całą resztę. Istnieje pewien głód, nie wiem, absolutu, kiedy wszystko jest takie relatywne, a wszystkie siły ekonomiczne narzucają im szybki zarobek i kredyt na karcie (…) Kiedy rzeczywistość nie jest prosta, ludzie chcą powrotu do naiwnej prostoty, czerni i bieli, prawdy i fałszu. (…) Inaczej bycie człowiekiem byłoby zbyt trudne. W przeciwieństwie do innych zwierząt wiemy za dużo. One wiedzą tylko tyle, żeby wypełnić swoje zadanie i umrzeć. Jedzą, śpią, pieprzą się, rodzą młode i umierają. (…) Chcę tylko powiedzieć, że dzieciaki takie jak Ahmad muszą mieć coś, czego nie daje im już społeczeństwo. Społeczeństwo nie pozwala im już zachować niewinności. Ci szaleni Arabowie mają rację - hedonizm, nihilizm, to wszystko, co mamy do zaoferowania.(…) Młodzi muszą podejmować teraz więcej decyzji niż kiedyś, bo dorośli nie potrafią im podpowiedzieć, co mają robić. My sami nie wiemy, co robić, nie mamy gotowych odpowiedzi tak jak kiedyś; po prostu trwonimy czas, starając się za dużo nie myśleć. Nikt nie bierze na siebie odpowiedzialności, więc robią to dzieciaki, przynajmniej niektóre… to pragnienie, żeby zrobić coś dobrego, żeby być dobrym, żeby gdzieś się zapisać… do wojska, orkiestry dętej, gangu, chóru, samorządu szkolnego, nawet do harcerstwa. (…) Na korytarzach serce ci się kraje, jak widzisz te twarze, tak pełne nadziei, oni chcą być d o b r z y, chcą coś znaczyć. Oczekują czegoś od samych siebie. To jest Ameryka, wszyscy czegoś oczekujemy, nawet socjopaci mają całkiem dobrą opinię na swój temat. Wiesz, kim ostatecznie zostają ci, z którymi są najgorsze problemy wychowawcze? Gliniarzami albo nauczycielami w liceum. Chcą zadowolić społeczeństwo, chociaż się do tego nie przyznają. Chcą być czegoś warci, gdybyśmy tylko mogli im wskazać, co jest wartościowe.”

John Updike

s. 121 - 122. Psycholog szkolny, Jack Levy w rozmowie z Terry - matką Ahmada.
Terrorysta

„Życie nie jest czymś, co można k o n t r o l o w a ć. Nie kontrolujemy oddechu, trawienia, bicia serca. Życie trzeba po prostu przeżyć. Trzeba pozwolić mu się t o c z y ć.”

John Updike

s. 54. Matka Ahmada (głównego bohatera) w rozmowie ze swoim kochankiem - Jackiem Levy.
Terrorysta

„Nie wiesz jeszcze zbyt dużo o miłości. On jest moim facetem. Gdyby nie ja, co by miał? Byłby żałosny i może za bardzo go kocham i nie chcę, żeby się o tym przekonał. Dla czarnego faceta wychowanego w biednej rodzinie w New Prospect sprzedawanie swojej kobiety nie jest żadną hańbą, jest sposobem na udowodnienie męskości.”

John Updike

s. 132. Joryleen w rozmowie z Ahmadem.
Terrorysta

John Updike: Cytaty po angielsku

“[Mim, to Nelson, after discussing Annabelle's stepfather being dead] "More and more is dead, are you old enough to notice? Vegas is dead, the way it was. […] Now it's herds. Herds and herds of Joe Nobodies. Bozos. The hoi pollio, running up credit-card debt. Gambling is legal in half the states so they've built these huge moron-catchers along the Strip, all the way to the airport. A Pyramid, the Eiffel Tower, Venice – it's all here, Nelson, all for the morons. It's depressing as hell."”

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John Updike książka Rabbit Remembered

Rabbit Remembered (2000)

“Zeus had loved his old friend, and lifted him up, and set him among the stars as the constellation Sagittarius. Here, in the Zodiac, now above, now below the horizon, he assists in the regulation of our destinies, though in this latter time few living mortals cast their eyes respectfully toward Heaven, and fewer still sit as students to the stars.”

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John Updike książka The Centaur

The Centaur (1963)

“Family occasions have always given Janice some pain, assembling like a grim jury these people to whom we owe something, first our parents and elders and then our children and their children. One of the things she and Harry secretly had in common, beneath all their troubles, was dislike of all that, these expected ceremonies.”

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John Updike książka Rabbit Remembered

Rabbit Remembered (2000)

“Vagueness and procrastination are ever a comfort to the frail in spirit.”

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John Updike książka In the Beauty of the Lilies

In the Beauty of the Lilies (1996)

“But the fast lane too gets to be a rut.”

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John Updike książka Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

“Look, Nelson. Maybe I haven't done everything right in my life. I know I haven't. But I haven't committed the greatest sin. I haven't laid down and died."
"Who says that's the greatest sin?”

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John Updike

"Everybody says it. The church, the government. It's against Nature, to give up, you've got to keep moving. That's the thing about you. You're not moving. You don't want to be here, selling old man Springer's jalopies. You want to be out there, learning something." He gestures toward the west. "How to hang glide, or run a computer, or whatever."
Rabbit is Rich (1981)

“When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas.”

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John Updike

Quoted in George Plimpton ed Writers at Work' Viking (1976)

“We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great extent, to be sociable.”

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John Updike

Christian Science Monitor (5 March 1979)

“He had a sensation of anxiety and shame, a sensitivity acute beyond usefulness, as if the nervous system, flayed of its old hide of social usage, must record every touch of pain.”

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John Updike

On Franz Kafka, quoted in report on Great Books discussion groups, New York Times (28 February 1985)

“[A grandchild barely able to remember Harry's own mother] But can Ma be no more than that in this child's memory? Do we dwindle so fast to next to nothing?”

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John Updike książka Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

“I would especially like to recourt the Muse of poetry, who ran off with the mailman four years ago, and drops me only a scribbled postcard from time to time.”

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John Updike

On completing a long novel, New York Times (7 April 1968)

“There had been a lot of death in the newspapers lately. […] and then before Christmas that Pan Am Flight 103 ripping open like a rotten melon five miles above Scotland and dropping all these bodies and flaming wreckage all over the golf course and the streets of this little town like Glockamorra, what was its real name, Lockerbie. Imagine sitting there in your seat being lulled by the hum of the big Rolls-Royce engines and the stewardesses bringing the clinking drinks caddy and the feeling of having caught the plane and nothing to do now but relax and then with a roar and a giant ripping noise and scattered screams this whole cozy world dropping away and nothing under you but black space and your chest squeezed by the terrible unbreathable cold, that cold you can scarcely believe is there but that you sometimes actually feel still packed into the suitcases, stored in the unpressurised hold, when you unpack your clothes, the dirty underwear and beach towels with the merciless chill of death from outer space still in them. […] Those bodies with hearts pumping tumbling down in the dark. How much did they know as they fell, through air dense like tepid water, tepid gray like this terminal where people blow through like dust in an air duct, to the airline we're all just numbers on the computer, one more or less, who cares? A blip on the screen, then no blip on the screen. Those bodies tumbling down like wet melon seeds.”

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John Updike książka Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

“Driving is boring," Rabbit pontificates, "but it's what we do. Most of American life is driving somewhere and then driving back wondering why the hell you went.”

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John Updike książka Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

“Rabbit feels as if the human race is a vast colourful jostling bristling parade in which he is limping and falling behind.”

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John Updike książka Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

“[Annabelle] "…health care is an expanding field, as the world fills up with people that would have been dead a hundred years ago. Everybody winds up needing care, pretty much."”

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John Updike książka Rabbit Remembered

Rabbit Remembered (2000)

“There's more to being a human being than having your own way.”

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John Updike książka Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

“Each set of woes can be left behind in a folder in a drawer at the end of the day. Whereas in the outside world there is no end of obligation, no protection from the needs and grief of others.”

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John Updike książka Rabbit Remembered

Rabbit Remembered (2000)

“…the Japanese interest him professionally. How do they and the Germans do it, when America's going down the tubes?”

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John Updike książka Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

“There was a beauty here, refined from country pastures, a game of solitariness, of waiting, waiting for the pitcher to complete his gaze toward first base and throw his lightning, a game whose very taste, of spit and dust and grass and sweat and leather and sun, was America.”

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John Updike książka Rabbit Redux

Rabbit Redux (1969)

“To say that war is madness is like saying that sex is madness: true enough, from the standpoint of a stateless eunuch, but merely a provocative epigram for those who must make their arrangements in the world as given.”

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John Updike

Źródło: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 4

“Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life.”

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John Updike

Źródło: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 6

“[Mim, to Nelson, about Annabelle] "She's letting herself go. You can't afford in life to do that if you're gonna contend."”

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John Updike książka Rabbit Remembered

Rabbit Remembered (2000)

“Charlie interrupts impatiently, "Pain is where it's at for punks. Mutilation, self-hatred, slam dancing. For these kids today, ugly is beautiful. That's their way of saying what a lousy world we're giving them. No more rain forests. Toxic waste. You know the drill."”

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John Updike książka Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

“Something about being helpless in bed, people hit you up for sympathy. They've got you where they want you.”

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John Updike książka Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

“[Nelson, re watching TV] He watches until he feels his intelligence being too rudely insulted or his patience being too arrogantly tested by the commercials…”

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John Updike książka Rabbit Remembered

Rabbit Remembered (2000)

“You are cynical.”

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John Updike książka Rabbit Redux

"Just middle-aged. Ideas used to grab me too. It's not that you get better ideas, the old ones just get tired. After a while, you see that even dollars and cents are just an idea. Finally the only thing that matters is putting some turds in the toilet bowl once a day. They stay real, somehow. Somebody came up to me and said, 'I'm God,' I'd say, 'Show me your badge.'"
Rabbit Redux (1969)

“I feared his visit. I was twenty-four, and the religious revival within myself was at its height. Earlier that summer, I had discovered Kierkegaard, and each week I brought back to the apartment one more of the Princeton University Press’s elegant and expensive editions of his works. They were beautiful books, sometimes very thick, sometimes very thin, always typographically exhilarating, with their welter of title pages, subheads, epigraphs, emphatic italics, italicized catchwords taken from German philosophy and too subtle for translation, translator’s prefaces and footnotes, and Kierkegaard’s own endless footnotes, blanketing pages at a time as, crippled, agonized by distinctions, he scribbled on and on, heaping irony on irony, curse on curse, gnashing, sneering, praising Jehovah in the privacy of his empty home in Copenhagen. The demons with which he wrestled—Hegel and his avatars—were unknown to me, so Kierkegaard at his desk seemed to me to be writhing in the clutches of phantoms, slapping at silent mosquitoes, twisting furiously to confront presences that were not there.”

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John Updike

The Astronomer by John Updike from Pigeon Feathers: and other stories p. 125 1959, 1962 Ballantine Books

“Man is an animal, but a social animal. Society for its manifold blessings asks in exchange sacrifice and compromise. Concession is the world's walking gait. Fevers and hallucinations sweep over us, it is true; but be they permitted to infect the public body, slaughter shall result. Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.”

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John Updike

Act I
Buchanan Dying (1974)

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