Facts are generally overesteemed. For most practical purposes, a thing is what men think it is. When they judged the earth flat, it was flat. As long as men thought slavery tolerable, tolerable it was. We live down here among shadows, shadows among shadows.
More Quotes from John Updike:
Vagueness and procrastination are ever a comfort to the frail in spirit.John Updike
Art is like baby shoes. When you coat them with gold, they can no longer be worn.
John Updike
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 something frantic in such fertility, a crying-out like that of children frantic to please.
John Updike
Life is like an overlong drama through which we sit being nagged by the vague memories of having read the reviews.
John Updike
I secretly understood the primitive appeal of the hearth. Television is-its irresistible charm-a fire.
John Updike
Doctorow here appears not so much a re-constructor of history as a visionary who seeks in time past occasions for poetry.
John Updike
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