If you have the guts to be yourself, other people'll pay your price.
John UpdikeRead
A woman’s 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 woman’s body.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True beauty in women is found in the natural elegance of their form, particularly the curve of the spine.
John Updike emphasizes that a woman's beauty is not defined by superficial exaggerations or strict aesthetic rules but rather in the graceful contours and natural lines of her body, particularly the curve of the spine. This perspective invites a deeper appreciation for the intrinsic qualities of beauty, highlighting the uniqueness of individual forms over societal standards.
Themes
BeautyGraceWomanBodyAesthetics
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on art and representation, this quote can highlight diverse perceptions of beauty.
More from John Updike
All quotes →Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of. _x000D_ _x000D_ Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.
John UpdikeRead
Museums and bookstores should feel, I think, like vacant lots - places where the demands on us are our own demands, where the spirit can find exercise in unsupervised play.
John UpdikeRead
But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.
John UpdikeRead
The reader knows the writer better than he knows himself; but the writer's physical presence is light from a star that has moved on.
John UpdikeRead
To guarantee the individual maximum freedom within a social frame of minimal laws ensures - if not happiness - its hopeful pursuit.
John UpdikeRead
Similar quotes
Music has been my outlet, my gift to all of the lovers in this world. Through it - my music, I know I will live forever.
Michael JacksonRead
Acting is not about being someone different. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.
Meryl StreepRead
Painting is not made to decorate apartments. It's an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy. (about Guernica).
Pablo PicassoRead
For me, the subject is of secondary importance: I want to convey what is alive between me and the subject.
Claude MonetRead
It is comforting that travel should have an architecture, and that it is possible to contribute a few stones to it, although the traveller is less like one who constructs landscapes -- for that is a sedentary task -- than like one who destroys them. . . . But even destruction is a form of architecture, a deconstruction that follows certain rules and calculations, an art of disassembling and reassembling, or of creating another and different order.
Claudio MagrisRead
You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.
Johnny CashRead