Home / Authors / John Updike

John Updike

John Updike Quotes

Novelist

John Updike was an American novelist known for his profound insights into middle-class life and his delicate narrative skills. His works spanned a wide range of genres from short stories to novels, including the classic 'Rabbit, Run' series and 'The Centaur'.

Filter quotes by topic

All Men World Writing Rabbit Angstrom Ifs People Literature Knows Littles Thinking Life Golf Book Doe Trying Art Kind Seems Self Feels

Famous John Updike Quotes

“I know how to choke. Given even a splinter-thin opportunity to let my side down and destroy my own score, I will seize it. Not only does ice water not run through my veins, but what runs there has a boiling point lower than body temperature.”

Knows Doe Body Running Opportunity Given Sides Water My Own Know How Down And Golf Ice Score Veins Temperature Choke Boiling Splinters Body Temperature Ice Water Boiling Point

Author:John Updike

“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.”

People Writing Humans Doe Important Ends Able Personality Height Encounters Poetry Is Ecstasy Bedroom Persist Transactions Human Personality

Author:John Updike

“One does not go to Moscow to get fat.”

Doe Fats Moscow

Author:John Updike

“Why does one never hear of government funding for the preservation and encouragement of comic strips, girlie magazines and TV soap operas? Because these genres still hold the audience they were created to amuse and instruct.”

Doe Stills Government Audience Tvs Encouragement Magazines Comic Genre Opera Preservation Soap Funding Soap Operas Comic Strips Government Funding

Author:John Updike

“Why does life feel, to us as we experience it, so desperately urgent and so utterly pointless at the same time?”

Feels Doe Urgent Pointless

Book:Roger's Version: A Novel

Source: Roger's Version: A Novel

“Photography is the first art wherein the tool does most of the work.”

Firsts Doe Art Photography Tools

Book:More Matter: Essays And Criticism

Source: More Matter: Essays And Criticism

“An affair wants to spill, to share its glory with the world. No act is so private it does not seek applause.”

World Want Love Doe Share Glory Affair Applause Spills

Author:John Updike

“Existence itself does not feel horrible; it feels like an ecstasy, rather, which we have only to be still to experience.”

Life Feels Doe Stills Literature Existence Experience Horrible Ecstasy

Author:John Updike

“The artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and he does it without destroying something else.”

World Doe Artist Destroying

Book:Conversations with John Updike

Source: Conversations with John Updike

“Looking foolish does the spirit good. The need not to look foolish is one of youth's many burdens; as we get older we are exempted from more and more.”

Needs Looks Doe Spirit Youth Burden Foolish

Book:Self-consciousness: memoirs

Source: Self-consciousness: memoirs

“The difficulty is, all swing thoughts decay, like radium. What burnt up the course on Wednesday has turned to lead on Sunday. Yet it does not do to have a blank mind: the terrible hugeness of the course will rush into the vacuum and the ball will spray like a thing berserk.”

Mind Doe Courses Terrible Balls Difficulty Golf Sunday Swings Decay Blank Vacuums Spray Wednesday Berserk Blank Mind

Author:John Updike

“Writers take words seriously-perha ps the last professional class that does-and they struggle to steer their own through the crosswinds of meddling editors and careless typesetters and obtuse and malevolent reviewers into the lap of the ideal reader.”

Doe Lasts Class Struggle Reader Ideals Editors Lap Careless Steers Reviewers Meddling

Author:John Updike

“The New England spirit does not seek solutions in a crowd; raw light and solitariness are less dreaded than welcomed as enhancers of our essential selves.”

Doe Self Light Spirit Essentials Solutions England Crowds New England

Author:John Updike

“New York is of course many cities, and an exile does not return to the one he left.”

Doe Courses Left Cities New York Return Exile

Book:Odd Jobs: Essays and Criticism

Source: Odd Jobs: Essays and Criticism

“Looking foolish does the spirit good.”

Doe Spirit Fool Foolish April April Fools Day

Book:Self-consciousness: memoirs

Source: Self-consciousness: memoirs

About the Author

Born: March 18, 1932
Died: January 27, 2009
Known for: Novelist
Quotes: 407

Related Topics

Men World Writing Rabbit Angstrom Ifs People Literature Knows Littles Thinking Life Golf Book Doe Trying Art Kind Seems Self Feels

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Rabbit is RichRelated source material

Rabbit ReduxRelated source material

Rabbit, RunRelated source material

Rabbit at RestRelated source material

Self-consciousness: memoirsRelated source material

Odd Jobs: Essays and CriticismRelated source material

Conversations with John UpdikeRelated source material

More Matter: Essays And CriticismRelated source material

Assorted ProseRelated source material

Golf Dreams: Writings on GolfRelated source material

Similar Authors

Jeanette WintersonBrowse related quotes
George SaundersBrowse related quotes
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheBrowse related quotes
Anna QuindlenBrowse related quotes
Stephen KingBrowse related quotes
Paul AusterBrowse related quotes
D. H. LawrenceBrowse related quotes
Franz KafkaBrowse related quotes
Virginia WoolfBrowse related quotes
Salman RushdieBrowse related quotes