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
central chimney massive recognized steep utter
A seventeenth-century house can be recognized by its steep roof, massive central chimney and utter porchlessness. Some of those houses have a second-story overhang, emphasizing their medieval look.
almost animated family life movies needed pictures provide seemed
I was an only child. I needed an alternative to family life - to real life, you could almost say - and cartoons, pictures in a book, the animated movies, seemed to provide it.
expressed perhaps somehow subject written
Perhaps I have written fiction because everything unambiguously expressed seems somehow crass to me; and when the subject is myself, I want to jeer and weep.
age basically heroes lives mundane ways writer
We're past the age of heroes and hero kings... Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it's up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.
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.
dare elderly faded wisdom word
I know more about what it's like to be elderly and infirm and kind of stupid, the way you get forgetful, but on the other hand I'm a littler, wiser, dare we say? The word 'wisdom' has kind of faded out of our vocabulary, but yeah, I'm a little wiser.
art foremost purchased resource tells
A house, having been willfully purchased and furnished, tells us more than a body, and its description is a foremost resource of the art of fiction.
I feel old only when I look at my hands or at myself in the mirror.
age fascinate seem
The theme of old age doesn't seem to fascinate Hollywood.
tend writers
The writers we tend to universally admire, like Beckett, or Kafka, or TS Eliot, are not very prolific.
glad soviet universal
New York, like the Soviet Union, has this universal usefulness: It makes you glad you live elsewhere.
cumulative dwelling occupied possession
The dwelling places of Europe have an air of inheritance, or cumulative possession - a hive occupied by generations of bees.
authentic authors ranks roll
The lust to meet authors ranks low, I think, on the roll of holy appetites; but it is an authentic pang.
amount author colleges pinch poke tempting
A number of American colleges are willing to pay a tempting amount to pinch and poke an author for a day or two.