A Quote by John Updike

What other sport holds out hope of improvement to a man or a woman over fifty? True, the pros begin to falter at around forty, but it is their putting nerves that go, not their swings. For a duffer like [me], the room for improvement is so vast that three lifetimes could be spent roaming the fiarways carving away at it, convinced that perfection lies just over the next rise. And that hope, perhaps, is the kindest bliss of all that golf bestows upon its devotees.

John Updike

Quote Topics

Around Away Begin Bliss Carving Convinced Could Falter Fifty Forty Go Golf Holds Hope Improvement Just Kindest Lies Lifetimes Like Man Me Nerves Next Other Out Over Perfection Perhaps Pros Putting Rise Roaming Room Room For Improvement Spent Sport Swings Three True Vast Woman

Quote Author

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

The man who reads only for improvement is beyond the hope of much improvement before he begins.

Jonathan Daniels

Now, being one who lived in the era of Obama, there are so many markers of improvement made. It's hard to be mindful of that, in the same way you're going, 'Oh everything's cool now!' and it isn't. But I try to be mindful of how much of an improvement there has been because that gives hope. You need hope. I need hope!

Mahershala Ali

Hope? Hope is not the absence of tragedy, my friend. It is the conviction that tragedy can be endured. Hope is the spark in you that is not subdued in the face of the vast and callous indifference of the universe. Hope is that which is not shattered by hardship. Hope is the urge to fight what is wrong even when you know it will destroy you. Hope is the decision to love and need someone knowing that they will one day die. For me to promise that there are no obstacles would be the cruelest lie I could possibly tell. That lie is not hope. Hope is the will which needs no lies.

Travis Beacham

It is the constant and undying hope for improvement that makes golf so exquisitely worth playing.

Bernard Darwin

I don't like anything that's "just an escape." To me the best part of golf is that, unlike my tennis game, I can actually get better. I've probably reached my plateau in tennis, but in golf I have a lot of room for improvement. I really enjoy working on my game. I like practicing. I chart my rounds.

Condoleezza Rice

It's your living room, it's your life, go nuts. You like Home Improvement? Tape it and go over it like it's the Zapruder film.

Dennis Miller

It's ridiculous having the pros in an amateur sport, but at the same time, there's a lot of pros who are going to struggle over three rounds.

Katie Taylor

Bliss - a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious - lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.

David Foster Wallace

Anybody would be a vast improvement over Obama.

Jerry Falwell, Jr.

Hope is different from optimism. Hope is a tough virtue, not a psychological predisposition. Hope insists on taking facts and reason into account and still insisting that improvement ... is always a real possibility.

E. J. Dionne

Man ever talks, and Man ever dreams Of better days that are yet to be, After glittering goal, that distant gleams, Running and racing untiringly. The worldly may grow old and young as it will, But the Hope of man is Improvement still. Hope bears him into life in her arms, She flutters around the boy's young bloom, The soul of youth with her magic warms, Nor rests with age in the silent tomb; For ends man his weary course at the grave, There plants he Hope o'er his ashes to wave.

Friedrich Schiller

The back windows looked out over the fields, then the Atlantic, maybe a hundred yards away. Actually, I'm just making that bit up. I had no idea how far away the sea was. Only men could do things like that. "Half a mile." "Fifty yards." Giving directions, that sort of thing. I could look at a woman and say "Thirty-six C." Or "Let's try it in the next size up." But I had no idea how far away Tim's sea was except that I wouldn't want to walk to it in high heels.

Marian Keyes

Even perfection has room for improvement.

Ty Warner

I certainly don't think we [The Elders organization] are oracles but I would hope that over our lifetimes we have accumulated some useful experience and perhaps even a modicum of wisdom! We don't have all the answers.

Desmond Tutu

Somebody's gonna give you A lesson in leavin' Somebody's gonna give you back What you've been givin' And I hope that I'm around To watch 'em knock you down It's like you to love'em and leave'em Just like you loved me and left me It's like you to do that sort of thing Over and over again You're a fool-hearted man.