“

If society is the prison, families are the cells, with no time off for good behavior. Good behavior in fact tends to lengthen the sentence.

— John Updike

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "If society is the prison, families are the cells, with no time off for good behavior. Good behavior in fact tends to lengthen the sentence." in the context of "" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
John Updike

About John Updike

John Hoyer Updike (18 March 1932 – 27 January 2009) was an American novelist, poet, critic and short-story writer.