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
country athlete trying
I complain a lot. That's one way of coping. But I'm in a profession where nobody tells you to quit. No board of other partners tells you it's time to get your gold watch, and no physical claim is made on you like an athlete or an actress. So I try to plug along on the theory that I can still do it. I still keep trying to produce prose, and some poetry, in the hope that I can find something to say about being alive, this country, but generally the human condition.
good hard tee
It's so hard to make a good tee shot after a birdie.
book thinking should-have
I think books should have secrets, like people do.
children thinking race
Having children is something we think we ought to do because our parents did it, but when it is over the children are just other members of the human race, rather disappointingly.
certain devoted life merely perfecting
We don't really want to think that the artist is only very skilled, that he has merely devoted his life to perfecting a certain set of intelligible skills.
art
In art, anything goes, and if it goes, it goes.
behind discover ideal outlast readers shelf writer
An aging writer has the not insignificant satisfaction of a shelf of books behind him that, as they wait for their ideal readers to discover them, will outlast him for a while.
life fall roller-coaster
Life is a roller coaster, you have your ups and downs unless you fall off.
art self work-ethic
American art in general... takes to surreal exaggerations and metaphors; but its Puritan work ethic has little use for the playful self-indulgence behind Parisian Surrealism.
life years self
As I get older, my childhood self becomes more accessible to me, but selectively, in images as stylized and suspect as moments remembered from a novel read years ago.
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.
amount answering becomes certain deal desk full great letter life matters though work
There is a great deal of busywork to a writer's life, as to a professor's life, a great deal of work that matters only in that, if you don't do it, your desk becomes very full of papers. So, there is a lot of letter answering and a certain amount of speaking, though I try to keep that at a minimum.
art nature dare
Art imitates Nature in this; not to dare is to dwindle.
sweet art war
Man makes one journey all his living days, Down through the realms of music and of art; Down through the halls of fame and glorious praise; Down through the tears and triumphs of the heart To some sweet woman waiting some place there. For her he builds his cities and makes war, Seeks gold and glorious wealth to store.