It skims in through the eye, and by means of the utterly delicate reti…

John Updike
174 citations
It skims in through the eye, and by means of the utterly delicate retina hurls shadows like insect legs inward for translation. Then an immense space opens up in silence and an endlessly fecund sub-universe the writer descends, and asks the reader to descend after him, not merely to gain instructions but also to experience delight, the delight of mind freed from matter and exultant in the strength it has stolen from matter.
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The great thing about the dead, they make space. ✨ John Updike (2010). Rabbit Is Rich, p.5, Random House
The essential self is innocent, and when it tastes its own innocence knows that it lives for ever. ✨ 1989 Self-Consciousness, I.'A Soft Spring Night in Shillington'.
Americans have been conditioned to respect newness, whatever it costs them. ✨ 1975 A Month of Sundays, ch.18.
In a country this large and a language even larger ... there ought to be a living for somebody who cares and wants to entertain and instruct a reader.
There is the fear that you somehow neglected to say what was really yours to say.

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