Being human cannot be borne alone. We need other presences. We need soft night noises—a mother speaking downstairs.
… We need the little clicks and sighs of a sustaining otherness. We need the gods.

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

In asking forgiveness of women for our mythologizing of their bodies, for being unreal about them, we can only appeal to their own sexuality, which is different but not basically different, perhaps, from our own. For women, too, there seems to be that tangle of supplication and possessiveness, that descent towards infantile undifferentiation, that omnipotent helplessness, that merger with the cosmic mother-warmth, that flushed pulse-quickened leap into overestimation, projection, general mix-up.

—John Updike

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.

—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

History

1 Jan 2016 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

Being human cannot be borne alone. We need other presences. We need soft night noises — a mother speaking downstairs.
. . . We need the little clicks and sighs of a sustaining otherness. We need the gods.

Being human cannot be borne alone. We need other presences. We need soft night noises—a mother speaking downstairs. … We need the little clicks and sighs of a sustaining otherness. We need the gods.

About John Updike

More quotations from John Updike

History

Being human cannot be borne alone. We need other presences. We need soft night noises—a mother speaking downstairs.
… We need the little clicks and sighs of a sustaining otherness. We need the gods.