A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other peoples patience. – John Updike
It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts absurd excuses, permits the flimsiest patching to repair great rents in the quotidian. – John Updike
Existence itself does not feel horrible it feels like an ecstasy, rather, which we have only to be still to experience. – John Updike
Patience is better than wisdom: an ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains. All men praise patience, but few enough can practise it; it is a medicine which is good for all diseases, and therefore every old woman recommends it; but it is not every garden that grows the herbs to make it with. – Charles H. Spurgeon (1834–1892), “On Patience” (John Ploughman)
As a young boy, I read Cheaper by the Dozen and immediately became neurotic about my use of time. It taxed me severely, but only for the next 50 years. But I think it also allowed me to discipline myself to sit in the chair and be a writer, where one of the most needed qualities is patience. – Ridley Pearson