“…he feels a stifling uselessness in things, a kind of atomic decay whereby the precious glowing present turns, with each tick of the clock, into the leaden slag of history.”

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "…he feels a stifling uselessness in things, a kind of atomic decay whereby the precious glowing present turns, with eac…" by John Updike?

John Updike240

American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, an… 1932–2009

Related quotes

“Time can tick when there is no clock.”

Anne Rice The Wolf Gift

Source: The Wolf Gift

“The death clock is ticking slowly in our breast, and each drop of blood measures its time, and our life is a lingering fever.”

Georg Büchner Leonce and Lena

Act II.
Leonce and Lena (1838)

“The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

“You have to cherish things in a different way when you know the clock is ticking, you are under pressure.”

Chadwick Boseman (1976–2020) American actor

“People don't understand the virtue of time, until their clock stops ticking. ”

Стив Гудман (1948–1984) American folk music singer-songwriter

“The ordinary citizen today assumes that science knows what makes the community clock tick; the scientist is equally sure that he does not.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "The Land Ethic", p. 205.

“The three men I admire most -- the father, son, and Mickie Most -- took the last train for the coast, and rendezvoused with Peter Glaze, to kill Don Maclean.
Turned Up Clocked On Laid Off, This Leaden Pall”

Nigel Blackwell

1993
Lyrics

“The clock always ticks. There are times you don't hear it, and there are times that you do.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

“I like to say I'm more conservative than Goldwater. He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax. I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.”

Pete Seeger (1919–2014) American folk singer

" The Old Left http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/22/magazine/sunday-january-22-1995-the-old-left.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/S/Seeger,%20Pete", New York Times Magazine, 22 January 1995, sect. 6 p. 13

“There's people who can't spell 'weird' right driving round with thousands in the bank; but I get by, got a lot on my mind; I get by, got allotments on my mind.
Turned Up Clocked On Laid Off, This Leaden Pall”