A Quote by John Updike

It is easy to love people in memory; the hard thing is to love them when they are there in front of you. — © John Updike
It is easy to love people in memory; the hard thing is to love them when they are there in front of you.
Well, sometimes love seems easy. Like..it's easy to love rain...and hawks. And it's easy to love wild plums...and the moon. But with people, seems like love's a hard thing to know. It gets all mixed up. I mean, you can love one person in one way and another person in another way. But how do you know you love the right one in every way?
Sometimes it's easy to do brave things in front of a thousand people, but it's hard to do them in front of a handful. It feels so much more exposing.
So yes. It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.
I love making music. I love that it's unstructured, that I get to go perform and play in front of people, to meet new people. I love to do the thing I'm best at every day.
Today, the sun is everywhere, and everything solid is nothing but its own shadow, I know that the real things in life, the things I remember, the things I turn over in my hands, are not houses, bank accounts, prizes or promotions. What I remember is love -- all love -- love of this dirt road, this sunrise, a day by the river, the stranger I met in a café. Myself, even, which is the hardest thing of all to love, because love and selfishness are not the same thing. It is easy to be selfish. It is hard to love who I am. No wonder I am surprised if you do.
People who are harder to love pose a challenge, and the challenge makes them easier to love. You're driven to love them. People who want their love easy don't really want love.
There is a kind of expressed love which is easy to subvert. When a figure is loved for their deeds, their conquests, their heroism, their goodness, their love of the people, these are easy enough to destroy... But there is a kind of love which is felt for apparently no reason... A love, inspired, it seems, by the gods, which it is impossible to fight, distort, destroy, or weaken. In fact, the attempts to destroy such loves only strengthen them. And to do nothing allows them to continue to grow at their natural pace, inexoribly, till this love becomes a wide and silent adoration.
I work pretty hard, and struggle, and things are hard, but the most important thing to remember is that I have beautiful children that I love, and I love them.
But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.
I love experienced people. I love people who are phenomenally talented. I love people who've worked so hard and been so courageous and are the leaders in their fields. For me to meet somebody like that and learn from them and share words with them -to me that's magic.
I love people, but I love the thought and memory of them just as much.
It's easy for the thought-leader and executive classes to embrace a 'do what you love and love what you do' philosophy when they are wealthy enough to work hard only voluntarily, and when their jobs grant them status.
Here I am going to say something which may come as a bit of a shock. God doesn't necessarily want us to be happy. He wants us to be lovable. Worthy of love. Able to be loved by Him. We don't start off being all that lovable, if we're honest. What makes people hard to love? Isn't it what is commonly called selfishness? Selfish people are hard to love because so little love comes out of them.
Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.
Falling in love isn't as easy as it seems when you've seen love crash and burn right in front of your eyes.
There are people that I am in love with, totally in love with them. I would die for them. I love Michelangelo. I love Charlie Chaplin with all my heart. I love Walt Disney. These are the people I am nuts over. These are my people. I love the great ones.
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