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
beauty christian cinema everywhere filled ideas life losing myths religion retreating spiritual success supports vacuum whereas
The cinema has done more for my spiritual life than the church. My ideas of fame, success and beauty all originate from the big screen. Whereas Christian religion is retreating everywhere and losing more and more influence; film has filled the vacuum and supports us with myths and action-controlling images.
religion church weekdays
In general, the churches, visited by me often on weekdays... bore for me the same relation to God that billboards did to Coca-Cola; they promoted thirst without quenching it.
jobs religion literature
Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life.
space religion stories
The inner spaces that a good story lets us enter are the old apartments of religion.
age exactly house large learned lived quite side throughout tree white yard
When I was born, my parents and my mother's parents planted a dogwood tree in the side yard of the large white house in which we lived throughout my boyhood. This tree I learned quite early, was exactly my age - was, in a sense, me.
almost arabic believer call prayer quite
Arabic is very twisting, very beautiful. The call to prayer is quite haunting; it almost makes you a believer on the spot.
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.
ancient fire god greeks human identified mars moving named pull red seen sinister sky star violent war
Mars has long exerted a pull on the human imagination. The erratically moving red star in the sky was seen as sinister or violent by the ancients: The Greeks identified it with Ares, the god of war; the Babylonians named it after Nergal, god of the underworld. To the ancient Chinese, it was Ying-huo, the fire planet.
cannot graduation help learn millions piece
You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it.
bookstores harvard
When I went away to college, I marveled at the wealth of bookstores around Harvard Square.
Fiction is burdened for me with a sense of duty.
onto
Bookstores are lonely forts, spilling light onto the sidewalk. They civilize their neighborhoods.
brains homes
Books externalise our brains and turn our homes into thinking bodies.