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
Fiction is burdened for me with a sense of duty.
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.
developer immersed instead memory
Memory has a spottiness, as if the film was sprinkled with developer instead of immersed in it.
additional inward pair pressure sheer silent structure unstable wired
My golf is so delicate, so tenuously wired together with silent inward prayers, exhortations and unstable visualizations, that the sheer pressure of an additional pair of eyes crumbles the whole rickety structure into rubble.
generally
My interest generally is the hidden Americans; the ones who live far away from the headlines.
drops four muse poetry ran time
I would especially like to recourt the Muse of poetry, who ran off with the mailman four years ago, and drops me only a scribbled postcard from time to time.
generation hope last living maybe shop writer
My generation was maybe the last in which you could set up shop as a writer and hope to make a living at it.
animator walt
My first ambition was to be an animator for Walt Disney. Then I wanted to be a magazine cartoonist.
attempt beyond books honest inevitably life models record trying
My attempt has been really to, beyond making a record of contemporary life, which is what you inevitably do, is trying to make beautiful books - books that are in some way beautiful, that are models of how to use the language, models of honest feeling, models of care.
My actinic keratosis is a result of the triumphalism of the beach. The sun exacerbates it.
appeal primitive secretly television
I secretly understood: the primitive appeal of the hearth. Television is-its irresistible charm-a fire.
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.
belong worried
I seem to have this need to belong to some church. I get worried on Sunday mornings.
family locate
Thinking it over, I can't locate another artist in the Updike family.