'The world as given'

John Updike in 1986

“To say that war is madness is like saying that sex is madness: true enough, from the standpoint of a stateless eunuch, but merely a provocative epigram for those who must make their arrangements in the world as given.’’

— John Updike (1932-2009), in Self-Consciousness, a memoir. Updike was a celebrated novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic and literary critic. Raised in Pennsylvania, he spent most of his life on the Massachusetts North Shore, including Ipswich, Georgetown andfor his last 30 years, in very affluent Beverly Farms. He came to be considered America’s leading man of letters.

— By Sswonk