John Updike Quotes

The shoe is very much an X-ray of social comportment.

The one thing that men and women have in common - they both like the company of men.

Even in real life, I'd rather hang out with guys.

If we're at a lunch table, I'm going to always sit with the girls. That's just kind of how I am. I always gravitate towards women. I know how to communicate with women.

There are different groups of people in your life that you behave slightly differently with. You behave one way with your family. You behave in a different way with your work colleagues. You behave differently with your friends from the movie club, your fitness instructor - all subtly different personas.

Technically, of course, he was right. Socially, he was annoying us.

Whenever I go out with other married couples, I like to bring along a single crackhead. Just to spice things up.

That which chiefly causes the failure of a dinner-party, is the running short--not of meat, nor yet of drink, but of conversation.

Every man depends on the quantity of sense, wit, or good manners he brings into society for the reception he meets with in it.

It is not done to let anybody be too happy. The moment two people seem to be enjoying one another's company, a good hostess introduces a third element or removes the first.

Girls are not accustomed to jockeying for status in an obvious way; they are more concerned that they be liked.

No man does right by a woman at a party.

If it is a cocktail party, I think bringing your partner, husband or wife is fine. To a certain extent, when someone throws a party, they expect to have people over. If it's a seated dinner, though, you should check beforehand. Asking to bring your partner is fair. Asking to bring eight friends from college is not. A good hostess will always accommodate extras and stragglers, but she'll never forget who brought them.

A wise man once said, 'The skill in attending a party is knowing when it's time to leave.'

Often times I'll quickly dash off an email or text message when I leave a party. A particularly enjoyable evening, however, that warrants a thank-you note or a phone call. I always say a handwritten note is the ultimate hallmark of a classy woman. But an email is better than nothing.

Women are a source of energy in life. I've always wanted to be in a war or baseball movie, but the thought of having no women on set for six months - that's hell. I don't know if it's animalistic or what, but men become like peacocks with their feathers up when women are around.

Reformers have long observed city people loitering on busy corners, hanging around in candy stores and bars and drinking soda popon stoops, and have passed a judgment, the gist of which is: "This is deplorable! If these people had decent homes and a more private or bosky outdoor place, they wouldn't be on the street!" That judgment represents a profound misunderstanding of cities. It makes no more sense than to drop in at a testimonial banquet in a hotel and conclude that if these people had wives who could cook, they would give their parties at home.

In society it is etiquette for ladies to have the best chairs and get handed things. In the home the reverse is the case. This is why ladies are more sociable than gentlemen.

Not greeting people isn't enough. One also doesn't greet people one doesn't know.

A well-bred man is always sociable and complaisant.

Only a great fool or a great genius is likely to flout all social grace with impunity, and neither one, doing so, makes the most comfortable companion.

Talk often, but never long; in that case, if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the whole company; this being one of the few cases in which people do not care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he has wherewithal to pay.

I’m not used to girls, or familiar with their customs. I feel awkward around them, I don’t know what to say. I know the unspoken rules of boys, but with girls I sense that I am always on the verge of some unforeseen, calamitous blunder.

Why is it that when men and women congregate, though the men may beat the women in numbers by ten to one, and through they certainly speak the louder, the concrete sound that meets the ears of any outside listener is always a sound of women's voices?