A Quote by John Updike

One of the cool, chaste countries - Canada or Sweden. — © John Updike
One of the cool, chaste countries - Canada or Sweden.
I think that Canada is one of the most impressive countries in the world, the way it has managed a diverse population, a migrant economy. The natural beauty of Canada is extraordinary. Obviously there is enormous kinship between the United States and Canada, and the ties that bind our two countries together are things that are very important to us.
People who believe in 'universal health care' show remarkably little interest - usually none - in finding out what that phrase turns out to mean in practice, in those countries where it already exists, such as Britain, Sweden or Canada. For one thing, 'universal health care' in these countries means months of waiting for surgery that Americans get in a matter of weeks or even days.
The communities and countries best at using energy to optimize a microclimate for human life are also the ones whose people have the longest average lifespans. Canada, Sweden, and Iceland - places with inhospitable winter weather - are frontrunners in sustaining human health and life.
Canada was for me very much Sweden, you know? Very much open people, that they read books, they go see films. I felt at home in Canada. And also, you speak French.
When you think of a safe and solid arbitration place, you think of Switzerland, Sweden, Canada. Those attributes may be associated with clichés, but I think they resonate with a lot of people and they are a solid base for Canada to co-operate and help others.
Cool is spent. Cool is empty. Cool is ex post facto. When advertisers and pundits hoard a word, you know it's time to retire from it. To move on. I want to suggest, therefore, that we begin to avoid cool now. Cool is a trick to get you to buy garments made by sweatshop laborers in Third World countries. Cool is the Triumph of the Will. Cool enables you to step over bodies. Cool enables you to look the other way. Cool makes you functional, eager for routine distraction, passive, doped, stupid.
Often, my liberal Canadian brethren will claim that 'Canada doesn't get involved in foreign affairs or wars overseas. We turn the other cheek.' No. Canada doesn't have the military might to exercise any option other than to remain uninvolved. They aren't turning the other cheek. They're pulling a Sweden.
I'm so proud to be Canadian. I've been to 58 countries, and they're wonderful countries, but Canada is the best.
I think one big reason why Sweden might have a good reputation around the world is that if you look at Norway or Denmark or Finland, any of the Scandinavian countries, they all seem less interested in being a part of the larger world, where Sweden has always tried to reach out, whether it's with Volvos, Saabs, H&Ms, music, clothes.
Maybe some Ukrainians would like to have Sweden or Canada for a neighbor, but we have Russia.
We French-Canadians belong to one country, Canada: Canada is for us the whole world: but the English-Canadians have two countries, one here and one across the sea.
I say a few good things about Canada in the book, you know. Americans are weird, though. We refuse to look at other countries. Start with Canadians - I want to think you aren't that different, so why can't we do our incarceration policies more like Canada? If we still had a 1970 level of incarceration which was the same as Canada's then and now, I never would have written this.
Only the chaste man and the chaste woman are capable of true love.
The U.N. [the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention] has looked into this whole situation. They spent eighteen months in formal, adversarial litigation. [So it's] me and the U.N. verses Sweden and the U.K. Who's right? The U.N. made a conclusion that I am being arbitrarily detained illegally, deprived of my freedom and that what has occurred has not occurred within the laws that the United Kingdom and Sweden, and that [those countries] must obey. It is an illegal abuse.
Many other countries that Canada competes with, fashion is part of their culture, whether it be the U.K. or Italy. They get a lot of support from the government. I think that's going to be required here in Canada, if we ever want to truly get behind the creativity that is here in this country.
Some countries you love. Some countries you hate. Canada is a country you worry about.
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