If you have the guts to be yourself, other people'll pay your price.
John UpdikeRead
For male and female alike, the bodies of the other sex are messages signaling what we must do - they are glowing signifiers of our own necessities.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The bodies of the opposite sex communicate our desires and needs, reflecting our internal emotions and requirements.
In this quote, John Updike suggests that the physical forms of men and women serve as profound indicators of our innate desires and necessities. He implies that our attraction to the bodies of the opposite sex is not merely superficial but rather a deep-seated signal that reveals our own needs, aspirations, and emotional states, thereby intertwining our physical existence with our psychological experiences in relationships.
Themes
BodiesRelationshipsDesiresSignalingNecessities
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used during a discussion about attraction and relationships in a psychology class.
More from John Updike
All quotes →Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of. _x000D_ _x000D_ Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.
John UpdikeRead
Museums and bookstores should feel, I think, like vacant lots - places where the demands on us are our own demands, where the spirit can find exercise in unsupervised play.
John UpdikeRead
But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.
John UpdikeRead
The reader knows the writer better than he knows himself; but the writer's physical presence is light from a star that has moved on.
John UpdikeRead
To guarantee the individual maximum freedom within a social frame of minimal laws ensures - if not happiness - its hopeful pursuit.
John UpdikeRead
Similar quotes
If something is going on, I hear about it. I like to talk to people, I socialise. Television is a waste of time. Human contact is what matters.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
I was conscious of the fact that it could be to my disadvantage to marry a white guy - that some folks would hold that against me.
Susan RiceRead
In the ensuing silence, I have time to contemplate the word cute— how dismissive it is, how it’s the equivalent of calling someone little, how it makes a person into a baby, how the word is a neon sign burning through the dark reading, “Feel Bad About Yourself.
John GreenRead
You’re lost in your own world, in the things that happen there, and you’ve locked all the doors. Sometimes I look at you sleeping. I wake up and look at you and I feel closer to you when you’re like that, unguarded, than when you’re awake. When you’re awake you’re like someone with her eyes closed, watching a movie on the inside of your eyelids. I can’t reach you anymore. Once upon a time I could, but not now, and not for a long time.
Nicole KraussRead
We had a death pact, and I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots. Goodbye.
Sid ViciousRead
I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister. Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.
Oscar WildeRead