The Buffalo News “Reporters’ Notebook” for March 17, 2016, posted by Olaf Fub,  quoted John Updike:

“A thought for this drizzly week from novelist John Updike, born on this date in 1932, ‘Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.'”

Updike bibliographer sent an email saying the quote, which is from “A Soft Spring Night in Shillington,” should read, “Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth”; but we expect to hear shortly from Updike’s biographer as well, since Updike was not born on March 17, but rather on the 18th.”