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Quotes from Rabbit at Rest — John Updike

1932–2009 United States

← All quotes by John Updike

60 quotes

...there ought to be a law that we change identities and families every ten years or so.

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

[re the human heart] That little electric twitch: without it we're so much rotting meat.

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

[Harry, to Thelma, about Janet] "She never really figured out how the world is put together but she's still working at it."

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Charlie asks her for a Perrier with lime. She says that San Pellegrino is what they have. He says it's all the same to him. Fancy water is fancy water.

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

...a sense of defeat the years have brought back to him, after what seemed for a while to be triumphs.

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

[Harry to Janice, about the financial situation] "...You're in real trouble."

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

[Nelson] "...I get none of the things a man's supposed to get from a wife."

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Women: you never know which side they want to dance on.

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

[Nelson, to Harry] "...I keep feeling hassled."

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Once when Harry asked Ed why they didn't go back to Toledo, Ed looked at him with that smartass squint and asked, "You ever been to Toledo?"

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

No matter how hard you climb, there are always the rich above you, who got there without effort. Lucky stiffs, holding you down, making you discontent so you buy more of the crap advertised on television.

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

"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."

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

[Harry, to Nelson] "Don't forget, there's a Depression coming."

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

[Dr Breit] "It's irrational, but so's the human species."

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

[coming away from the doctor's after a check-up] Get interested is the advice, but in truth you are interested in less and less. It's Nature's way.

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

[A grandchild barely able to remember Harry's own mother] But can Ma be no more than that in this child's memory? Do we dwindle so fast to next to nothing?

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

This airport has been designed with big windows viewing the runways, so if there's a crash everybody can feast upon it with their own eyes. The fireball, the fuselage doing a slow skidding twirl, shedding its wings.

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

[re a woman on TV on 'Wheel of Fortune'] She makes you proud to be a two-legged mammal.

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

[Mr Shimada] "Toyota does not enjoy bad games prayed with its ploduct."

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

[Re Florida] Just not being senile is considered great down here.

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: John Updike (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.