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
time elements invaders
Time is our element, not a mistaken invader.
death space great-things
The great thing about the dead, they make space.
autumn grieving years
The stripped and shapely Maple grieves The ghosts of her Departed leaves. The ground is hard, As hard as stone. The year is old, The birds are flown.
writing merit artistic
The measure of artistic merit is the length to which a writer is willing to go in following his own compulsions.
golf men wife
Many men are more faithful to their golf partners than to their wives and have stuck with them longer.
safe filmmaker edges
Movies took you right up to the edge but kept you safe.
football mother morning
The breezes taste Of apple peel. The air is full Of smells to feel- Ripe fruit, old footballs, Burning brush, New books, erasers, Chalk, and such. The bee, his hive, Well-honeyed hum, And Mother cuts Chrysanthemums. Like plates washed clean With suds, the days Are polished with A morning haze.
writing eggs chickens
Writing doesn't require drive. It's like saying a chicken has to have drive to lay an egg.
water buckets
Money is like water in a leaky bucket: no sooner there, it begins to drip.
drinking beer thinking
An old essay by John Updike begins, 'We live in an era of gratuitous inventions and negative improvements.' That language is general and abstract, near the top of the ladder. It provokes our thinking, but what concrete evidence leads Updike to his conclusion ? The answer is in his second sentence : 'Consider the beer can.' To be even more specific, Updike was complaining that the invention of the pop-top ruined the aesthetic experience of drinking beer. 'Pop-top' and 'beer' are at the bottom of the ladder, 'aesthetic experience' at the top.
writing something-new
There's always something new by looking at the same thing over and over.
feelings made feels
I was made to feel I could do things. If you get this feeling early and can hold it until you're 15, you tend to never lose it.
family way obligation
Families, doing everything for each other out of imagined obligation and always getting in each other's way, what a tangle.
dance dancing devil
All dancing is now is standing in place and letting the devil of the music enter you.