Ronald Reagan

Rabbit liked Reagan. He liked the foggy voice, the smile, the big shoulders, the way his head kept wagging during the long pauses, the way he floated above the facts, and the way he could change direction while saying he was going straight ahead.

– John Updike, Rabbit at Rest : 169

 

One less witness

Like the death of your parents it leaves you with one less witness to your life when a man you loved dies.

– John Updike, Rabbit Remembered

 

The phone is ringing, ringing, like thrilling cold…

The phone is ringing, ringing, like thrilling cold water poured into the mossy warm crevices of his dream. With a throat dry from mouth-breathing he croaks, ‘Hello?’

– John Updike, Rabbit at rest, 240

 

Fear of flying, fear of dying

As the candy settles in his stomach a sense of doom regrows its claws around his heart: little prongs like those that hold fast a diamond solitaire. There as been a lot of death in the newspapers lately. Before Christmas that Pan Am Flight 103 ripping open like a rotten melon five miles above Scotland and dropping all these bodies and flaming wreckage all over the golf course and the streets of this little town like Glockamorra, what was its real name, Lockerbie. Imagine sitting there in your seat being lulled by the hum of the big Rolls Royce engines and the stewardesses bringing the clinking drinks caddy and the feeling of having caught the plane and nothing to do now but relax and then with a roar and giant ripping noise and shattered screams this whole cosy world dropping away and nothing under you but black space and your chest squeezed by the terrible unbreathable cold, that cold you can scarcely believe is there but that you sometimes actually still feel packed into your suitcases, stored in the unpressurized hold, when you unpack your clothes, the dirty underwear and beach towels with the merciless chill of death from outer space still in them.
– John Updike, Rabbit at rest 8

 

Ever since childhood, Rabbit has had mixed feeling…

Ever since childhood, Rabbit has had mixed feelings about eating, especially the creatures that not too long ago were living just like you. Sometimes he imagines he can taste the terror of the ax in the slice of turkey or chicken and the happy snorting and wallowing in pork and the stupid monotony of a cow’s life in beef, and in lamb a hint of urine…
– JohnUpdike, Rabbit at rest 323

 

Sleep

His eyelids feel heavy again; a fog within is rising up to swallow his brain. When you are sleepy an inner world smaller than a seed in sunlight expands and becomes irresistible, breaking the shell of consciousness. It is so strange; there must be some other way of being alive than all this eating and sleeping, this burning and freezing, this sun and moon.

– John Updike, Rabbit at Rest : 327

 

One less witness

Like the death of your parents it leaves you with one less witness to your life when a man you loved dies.

– John Updike, Rabbit Remembered

 

Mixed feelings about eating

Ever since childhood, Rabbit has had mixed feelings about eating, especially the creatures that not too long ago were living just like you. Sometimes he imagines he can taste the terror of the ax in the slice of turkey or chicken and the happy snorting and wallowing in pork and the stupid monotony of a cow’s life in beef, and in lamb a hint of urine…

– John Updike, Rabbit at Rest

 

Family occasions

Family occasions have always given Janice some pain, assembling like a grim jury these people to whom we owe something, first our parents and elders and our children and their children.

– John Updike, Rabbit Remembered