Rabbit's China, Gorbachev, Tiananmen Square . . .

"The nightly news has a lot of China on it—Gorbachev visiting, students protesting in Tiananmen Square, but not protesting Gorbachev, in fact they like him, all the world likes him, despite that funny mark on his head shaped like Japan. What the Chinese students seem to want is freedom, they want to be like Americans, but they look like Americans already, in blue jeans and T-shirts. Meanwhile in America itself the news is that not only President George Bush but Mrs. Bush the First Lady take showers with their dog Millie, and if that's all the Chinese want we should be able to give it to them, or something close, though it makes [Rabbit] miss Reagan slightly, at least he was dignified, and had that dream distance; the powerful thing about him as President is that you never knew how much he knew, nothing or everything, he was like God that way, you had to do a lot of it yourself."

~~ from Rabbit at Rest by John Updike

Mike Schmidt and Richie Ashburn

"On the radio on the way home, [Rabbit Angstrom] hears that Mike Schmidt, who exactly two years ago, on April 18, 1987, slugged his five hundredth home run, against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Three Rivers Stadium, is closing in on Richie Ashburn's total of 2,217 hits to become the hittingest Phillie ever. Rabbit remembers Ashburn. One of the Whiz Kids who beat the Dodgers for the pennant the fall Rabbit became a high-school senior. Curt Simmons, Del Ennis, Dick Sisler in center, Stan Lopata behind the plate. Beat the Dodgers the last game of the season, then lost to the Yankees four straight. In 1950 he was seventeen and had led the county B league with 817 points his junior season."

~~ from Rabbit at Rest by John Updike

Rabbit at McDonald's

"[Roy] likes to pour salt out of the shaker until he has a heap and then rub the French fries in it, one by one. The French fries and about a pound of salt are all the kid eats; Harry finishes his Big Mac for him, even though he doesn't much care for all the Technicolor glop McDonald's puts on everything—pure chemicals. Whatever happened to the old-fashioned plain hamburger? Gone wherever the Chiclet went."

~~ from Rabbit at Rest by John Updike

Rabbit at Airport

"Airport prices, they nail you where there's no competition. Without competition, you get socialism and everybody free-loading and economies like they have in Cuba and Haiti. [Rabbit] pauses to glance at the magazines on the rack."

~~ from Rabbit at Rest by John Updike