You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it.

Updike’s image of the world as “an old piece of clay” emphasizes both its malleability and its deep history. To “take the world into your hands” suggests active engagement—reading, traveling, making, loving, working—through which understanding inevitably grows. But the admonition to take it up “reverently” counters any fantasy of novelty or ownership: the world has been handled by countless lives before ours, leaving “millions of thumbprints” (traditions, scars, achievements, mistakes). The quote thus balances curiosity with humility, urging a learner’s posture that respects inherited human experience even while shaping one’s own mark.