A Quote by John Updike

We are cruel enough without meaning to be.

John Updike

Quote Topics

Cruel Enough Meaning Without

Quote Author

John Updike
American - Novelist
March 18, 1932 - January 27, 2009

I want to be rich enough that, without being cruel, I could buy a horse, a white horse, and permanently attach a horn. A pearlescent horn. And then I could just be like, 'Yeah, I have a unicorn.' But I don't know how you do that without being cruel.

Jacob Anderson

Life could be cruel enough these days without the truth making it worse.

Kate Morton

Affection between adults - if they are really adult in mind and not merely grown up children - and creatures so relatively selfish and cruel as children necessarily are without knowing it or meaning it, cannot be called natural.

George Bernard Shaw

Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.

Joseph Campbell

Everyone is afraid of you and when folk are afraid of a person it usually means the person is cruel in some way, and I think you are cruel, Miss Marquess, but please don’t punish me for saying it. I think you know you’re cruel. I think you like being cruel. I think calling you cruel is the same as calling someone else kind. And I don’t want to run errands for someone cruel.

Catherynne M. Valente

Is it not enough that 'things are cruel and blind'? Must we also be cruel and blind?

Voltairine de Cleyre

I can not 'make my mark' for all time - those concepts are mutually exclusive. 'Lasting effect' is a self-contradictory term. Meaning does not exist in the future and neither do I. Nothing will have meaning 'ultimately.' Nothing will even mean tomorrow what it did today. Meaning changes with the context. My meaningfulness is here. It is enough that I am of value to someone today. It is enough that I make a difference now.

Hugh Prather

Unhappily the habit of being offensive 'without meaning it' leads usually to a way of making amends which the injured person cannot but regard as a being amiable without meaning it.

George Eliot

Oh, I will be cruel to you, Marya Morevna. It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don’t you? You are clever enough. I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I am your servant. When you starve I will feed you; when you are sick I will tend you. I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased. For you alone I will be weak.

Catherynne M. Valente

No, I only think you cruel, as I said the other day. Maybe not intentionally cruel; but you seem to be forcing me into disclosures which can result in nothing; as if you would have me bare a wound for the pleasure of looking at it, without the intention or power of healing it.

Kate Chopin

Without a purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason.

Rick Warren

To most humans, a universe consisting of particles banging about and doing what they have to do seems cold, barren, and without meaning. Meaning, however, is not something that floats in space, permeating the universe like a nebulous, mystical cloud. ... Meaning arises out of the working of the human mind, and therefore exists only in the human mind. The meaning of existence is whatever you want to make of it.

Milton A. Rothman

Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.

Samuel Johnson

A door jumps out from shadows, then jumps away. This is what I've come to find: the back door, unlatched. Tooled by insular wind, it slams and slams without meaning to and without meaning.

Li-Young Lee

Skill sheets, workbooks, basal reader, flash cards are not enough. To convey meaning you need someone sharing the meaning and flavor of real stories with the student.