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
carrying majors narrow rocks tiger uphill
Tiger Woods did not always win majors with ease; after his narrow victory in the 1999 PGA, he slumped and sighed as if he'd been carrying rocks uphill all afternoon.
activity american-novelist becomes cares creative creativity doer merely name plus regular
Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.
both cardboard changing heavy moved twice weight
As movers and the moved both know, books are heavy freight, the weight of refrigerators and sofas broken up into cardboard boxes. They make us think twice about changing addresses.
careless class editors ideal lap last malevolent meddling reviewers steer struggle words writers
Writers take words seriously-perhaps the last professional class that does-and they struggle to steer their own through the crosswinds of meddling editors and careless typesetters and obtuse and malevolent reviewers into the lap of the ideal reader.
cartoonist pictures wanting writer
My transition from wanting to be a cartoonist to wanting to be a writer may have come about through that friendly opposition, that even-handed pairing, of pictures and words.
animation cartoonist credit whatever
For whatever crispness and animation my writing has I give some credit to the cartoonist manque.
activity becomes cares creative doer
Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or doing it better.
country writing care
In a country this large and a language even larger ... there ought to be a living for somebody who cares and wants to entertain and instruct a reader.
home car literature
Most of American life consists of driving somewhere and then returning home, wondering why the hell you went.
breakup caring trouble
That's the trouble with caring about anybody, you begin to feel overprotective. Then you begin to feel crowded.
race car chance
There is always a chance of failure, of producing something totally unnecessary. But I guess that chance of failure is what makes tightrope walking, race-car driving...
thinking careers worry
So, you know, I think any life has in it enough material, enough points of departure, to fuel a writer's career and that we shouldn't worry about what we're not but to try to focus on what we are and what we do know.
criticism failure threatens
The study of literature threatens to become a kind of paleontology of failure, and criticism a supercilious psychoanalysis of authors.
appeal primitive secretly television
I secretly understood: the primitive appeal of the hearth. Television is-its irresistible charm-a fire.