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
book writing want
I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody's head.
pain writing honey
Being able to write becomes a kind of shield, a way of hiding, a way of too instantly transforming pain into honey.
people musician mysterious
Musicians are very mysterious and wonderful people to me; I don't know how they do it.
sex too-much enough
Sex is like money; only too much is enough.
memories people lovely
It is easy to love people in memory; the hard thing is to love them when they are there in front of you.
life experience literature
Existence itself does not feel horrible; it feels like an ecstasy, rather, which we have only to be still to experience.
jobs reading thinking
I think people do look to writers to tell the truth in a way that nobody else quite will, not politicians or ministers or sociologists. A writer's job, is to, by way of fiction, somehow describe the way we live. And to me, this seems an important task, very worth doing, and I think also, to the reading public, it seems, even though they might not articulate it, it seems to them something worth doing also.
acceptance self perfection
Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self- solitude is the enemy of well- being.
memories drama drinking
Life is like an overlong drama through which we sit being nagged by the vague memories of having read the reviews.
inspiration literature materials
Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered.
aware
In a city like New York, you're aware of the rich and poor.
agents literary seemed york
In leaving New York in 1957, I did leave without regret the literary demimonde of agents and would-be's and with-it nonparticipants; this world seemed unnutritious and interfering.
almost asked photograph sell supposed work written
In my first 15 or 20 years of authorship, I was almost never asked to give a speech or an interview. The written work was supposed to speak for itself, and to sell itself, sometimes even without the author's photograph on the back flap.
In any interview, you do say more or less than you mean.