When we try in good faith to believe in materialism, in the exclusive reality of the physical, we are asking our selves to step aside; we are disavowing the very realm where we exist and where all things precious are kept—the realm of emotion and conscience; of memory and intention and sensation.

About John Updike

John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, and Colson Whitehead), Updike published more...

More quotations from John Updike

What art offers is space—a certain breathing room for the spirit.

—John Updike

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

—John Updike

dreams

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.

—John Updike

Adversity in immunological doses has its uses; more than that crushes.

—John Updike

The world keeps ending but new people too dumb to know it keep showing up as if the fun's just started.

—John Updike

world culture ending continuation

History

22 Nov 2015 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

When we try in good faith to believe in materialism, in the exclusive reality of the physical, we are asking our selves to step aside; we are disavowing the very realm where we exist and where all things precious are kept — the realm of emotion and conscience; of memory and intention and sensation.