A womanโs beauty lies, not in any exaggeration of the specialized zones, nor in any general harmony that could be worked out by means of the sectio aurea or a similar aesthetic superstition; but in the arabesque of the spine. The curve by which the back modulates into the buttocks. It is here that grace sits and rides a womanโs body.
John UpdikeThere's a crystallization that goes on in a poem which the young man can bring off, but which the middle-aged man can't.
John UpdikeIt's a man's world, they say; but in its daily textures it is a world created by and for women.
John UpdikeOur brains are no longer conditioned for reverence and awe. We cannot imagine a Second Coming that would not be cut down to size by the televised evening news, or a Last Judgment not subject to pages of holier-than-thou second-guessing in The New York Review of Books.
John Updike