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
novelist
A Christian novelist tries to describe the world as it is.
arise artist create doubly intrinsic might novel reason talented
I see no intrinsic reason why a doubly talented artist might not arise and create a comic-strip novel masterpiece.
deal escapist fact fantastic lives novel people time writer
The writer must face the fact that ordinary lives are what most people live most of the time, and that the novel as a narration of the fantastic and the adventurous is really an escapist plot; that aesthetically, the ordinary, the banal, is what you must deal with.
american-novelist rain sky
Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.
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.
discovered distracted narrow novels people tastes
For many years, I read mystery novels for relaxation. But my tastes were too narrow - and, having read all of Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr, I discovered that the implausibility and the thinness of the people distracted me unduly from the plot.
field impact instant second sine
In his field - where edge, zip and instant impact are sine qua non - Kidd is second to none.
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.
coin fairly financial good love modest reward sort task vocation
It's sort of good to see your vocation as a daily task and have fairly modest expectations for financial or reward in other coin - glory, love, whatever.
good hard tee
It's so hard to make a good tee shot after a birdie.
trying
If my mother hadn't been trying to be a writer, I don't know if I would have thought of it myself.
aware
I never really made a choice to live in America, so I should be aware of the social strata outside of the ones that I may live in.