In the purifying sweep of atheism human beings lost all special value. The numb misery of the horse was matched by that of the farmer; the once-green ferny lives crushed into coal's fossiliferous strata were no more anonymous and obliterated than Clarence's own life would soon be, in a wink of earth's tremendous time. Without Biblical blessing the physical universe became sherry horrible and disgusting. All fleshy acts became vile, rather than merely some. The reality of men slaying lambs and cattle, fish and fowl to sustain their own bodies took on an aspect of grisly comedy--the blood-soaked selfishness of a cosmic mayhem. John Updike
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More Quotes By John Updike
  1. It is easy to love people in memory the hard thing is to love them when they are there in front of you.

  2. Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.

  3. If you have the guts to be yourself, other people'll pay your price.

  4. The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.

  5. Being able to write becomes a kind of shield, a way of hiding, a way of too instantly transforming pain into honey.

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