"Life is like an overlong drama through..." - Quote by John Updike

“The essential support and encouragement comes from within, arising out of the mad notion that your society needs to know what only you can tell it.”

“Our brains are no longer conditioned for reverence and awe. We cannot imagine a Second Coming that would not be cut down to size by the televised evening news, or a Last Judgment not subject to pages of holier-than-thou second-guessing in The New York Review of Books.”

“Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life.”

“Life itself is ... a sleep within a sleep.”

“Take it easy driving– the life you save may be mine.”

“We must recognize what in our accepted tradition is damaging to our fate and dignity-and shape our lives accordingly.”

“Can you feel that there is something in you that is at war, something that feels threatened and wants to survive at all cost, that needs the drama in order to assert its identity as the victorious character within that theatrical production? Can you feel there is something in you that would rather be right than at peace?”

“Drama usually has some sort of intense conflict.”

“The only link between Literature and the Drama left to us in England at the present moment is the bill of the play.”