John Updike
John Updike
John Hoyer Updikewas an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth18 March 1932
CountryUnited States of America
art levels fields
Professionalism in art has this difficulty: To be professional is to be dependable, to be dependable is to be predictable, and predictability is esthetically boring - an anti-virtue in a field where we hope to be astonished and startled and at some deep level refreshed.
memories joy tears
Our tears fatten upon our memories of joy.
stories stones flow
It is not enough for a story to flow. It has to kind of trickle and glint as it crosses over the stones of the bare facts.
hurt eye reality
How circumstantial reality is! Facts are like individual letters, with their spikes and loops and thorns, that make up words: eventually they hurt our eyes, and we long to take a bath, to rake the lawn, to look at the sea.
monday couple inspiration
A few places are especially conducive to inspiration - automobiles, church - public places. I plotted Couples almost entirely in church - little shivers and urgencies I would note down on the program, and carry down to the office Monday.
want down-and young-writers
I really don't want to encourage young writers. Keep them down and out and silent is my motto.
real needs infatuation
I'm always looking for insights into the real Doris Day because I'm stuck with this infatuation and need to explain it to myself.
real past hay-fever
I moved to New England partly because it has a real literary past. The ghosts of Hawthorne and Melville still sit on those green hills. The worship of Mammon is also somewhat lessened there by the spirit of irony. I don't get hay fever in New England either.
atheist intellectual atheism
Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual position.
writing trying busy
Try to develop actual work habits, and even though you have a busy life, try to reserve an hour, say - or more - a day to write. Some very good things have been written on an hour a day.
world fraud rounds
Fraud makes the world go round.
people good-times feels
Nothing feels worse than other people's good times.
ugly gorgeous accents
Accent the ugly until it becomes gorgeous.
bored planets so-bored
How can the planet keep turning and turning and not get so bored it explodes?