Authors:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

John Updike Quotes - Page 14

All Quotes Adultery Adventure Age Art Atheism Atheist Childhood Children Country Creation Critics Design Education Exercise Fame Feelings Giving Golf Heart History Home Humanity Inspirational Learning Life Literature Love Lying Madness Marriage Memories Morning Pain Past Pleasure Quality Reality Religion Running School Soul Sports Time Waiting War Water Writing

The crooked little tomato branches, pulpy and pale as if made of cheap green paper, broke under the weight of so much fruit; there was something frantic in such fertility, a crying-out like that of children frantic to

The crooked little tomato branches, pulpy and pale as if made of cheap green paper, broke under the weight of so much fruit; there was something frantic in such fertility, a crying-out like that of children frantic to please.

Children, Tomatoes, Paper

John Updike (2007). “The Witches of Eastwick”, p.8, Penguin UK

A writer's self-consciousness, for which he is much scorned, is really a mode of interestedness, that inevitably turns outward.

Self, Consciousness, Turns

1989 Self-Consciousness, I.'A Soft Spring Night in Shillington'

But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.

Dark, Hands, Two

John Updike (2010). “Rabbit, Run”, p.35, Random House

Don't you see, if when we die there's nothing, all your sun and fields and what not are all, ah, horror? It's just an ocean of horror.

Ocean, Fields, Sun

Movies took you right up to the edge but kept you safe.

Movie, Inspiring, Safe

Figure out where you're going before you go there: he was told that a long time ago.

Time, Long, Figures

John Updike (2003). “Rabbit is rich ; Rabbit at rest”

The scrape and snap of Keds on loose alley pebbles seems to catapult their voices high into the moist March air blue above the wires.

Air, Blue, Voice

John Updike (2010). “Rabbit, Run”, p.8, Random House

I will try not to panic, to keep my standard of living modest and to work steadily, even shyly, in the spirit of those medieval carvers who so fondly sculpted the undersides of choir seats.

Work, Trying, Panic

John Updike, James Plath (1994). “Conversations with John Updike”, p.16, Univ. Press of Mississippi

You have a life and there are these volumes on either side that go unvisited; some day soon as the world winds he will lie beneath what he now stands on, dead as those insects whose sound he no longer hears, and the grass will go on growing, wild and blind.

Lying, Wind, Sides

John Updike (2010). “Rabbit Is Rich”, p.313, Random House

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.

Country, Athlete, Trying

The measure of artistic merit is the length to which a writer is willing to go in following his own compulsions.

Writing, Merit, Artistic

From the standpoint of a Middle Eastern citizen, Americans look like a bully forcing our way of life on the Islamic way of life. The notion of purity is very important in Islam, and a lot of the negative warlike actions taken against us have to do with our physical presence in the Middle East. Osama bin Laden was trying to get the American, or protesting the American military presence in Saudi Arabia. It's not surprising that our strong presence in Iraq has produced a wave of resistance anger, extreme anger in some cases, and a permissive atmosphere that allows these people to go undetected.

Strong, Military, Taken

Source: www.today.com

My mother didn't raise me to be a critic, but I seem to have become one anyway.

Mother, Critics, Raises

Source: www.neh.gov

Musicians are very mysterious and wonderful people to me; I don't know how they do it.

People, Musician, Mysterious

Source: www.neh.gov

So, you know, I think any life has in it enough material, enough points of departure, to fuel a writer's career and that we shouldn't worry about what we're not but to try to focus on what we are and what we do know.

Thinking, Careers, Worry

John Updike, James Plath (1994). “Conversations with John Updike”, p.212, Univ. Press of Mississippi

What seems to sell books is good word-of-mouth, not promotion tours. I'm too old to believe that media promotion of a book really matters. What matters is how it will look 100 years from now, not how many copies are sold.

Believe, Book, What Matters

I think it's the sentence-to-sentence pleasures, the little surprises of a surprising style of an acute style, and also the way things happen one after the other, that makes a book interesting to read page to page

Book, Thinking, Interesting

John Updike, James Plath (1994). “Conversations with John Updike”, p.210, Univ. Press of Mississippi

I did feel as though a number of critics had appointed themselves, when they sat down with a new book of mine, to rectify what they felt to be was my inflated reputation and so that the book in hand was not really given a chance but made a kind of weapon in the general attempt to bring me down to size.

Book, Hands, Numbers

John Updike, James Plath (1994). “Conversations with John Updike”, Univ Pr of Mississippi

Seemed to me important in writing about people to be able to describe the sexual transactions between them. It's - for many people it's the height of, what they see, of ecstasy and poetry is in their sexual encounters. And furthermore, personality - human personality does not end in the bedroom, but persists.

Writing, People, Personality

"Remembering John Updike, Literary Legend". www.npr.org. January 28, 2009.

You May Also Like: