John Hoyer Updike

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

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

[Harry, talking about the doctor who came to the ward and then went away.] "That guy has a thing about potato chips and hot dogs. If God didn't want us to eat salt and fat, why did He make them taste so good?"

Life is a hill that gets steeper the more you climb.

In show business you learn to let it slide off your back. You know, fuck 'em. Otherwise you'd kill yourself.

Not his problem. Fewer and fewer things are.

When you feel irresistable, you're hard to resist.

She closes her eyes and wordlessly thinks of all the misery sex has caused the world...

"Who wants to fish, if you're halfway civilised? Dangling some dead meat in front of some poor brainless thing and then pulling him up by a hook in the roof of his mouth? Cruellest thing people do is fish."

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

[Pru] "...He's still trying to work out what you two did to him, as if you were the only parents in the world who didn't keep wiping their kid's ass until he was thirty. I tell him: Get real, Nelson. Lousy parents are par for the course. My God. Nothing's ideal."

Women are actresses, tuning their part to each little audience.