Quote #101
Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day.
Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.
More from John Updike
- Possession diminishes perception of value, immediately.
- The crooked little tomato branches, pulpy and pale as if made of cheap green paper, broke under the weight of so much fruit; there was some…
- Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solicitude is the enemy of well-being.
- The ending is where the reader discovers whether he has been reading the same story the writer thought he was writing.
- Natural beauty is essentially temporary and sad; hence the impression of obscene mockery which artificial flowers give us
- The stripped and shapely Maple grieves The ghosts of her Departed leaves. The ground is hard, As hard as stone. The year is old, The birds …
- Most of American life consists of driving somewhere and then returning home, wondering why the hell you went.
- The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.