Quotessence
Home / Authors / John Updike
John Updike

John Updike Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenWorldWritingRabbit AngstromIfsPeopleLiteratureKnowsLittlesThinkingLifeGolfBookDoeTryingArtKindSeemsSelfFeels

Famous John Updike Quotes

“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.”

FeelsKindMadeBookHandsGivenFeltChanceNumbersMinesWeaponsCriticsSizeReputationSatNew BooksRectifyGiven A ChanceBring Me Down
Book:Conversations with John Updike
Create image

“Most writers begin with accounts of their first home, their family, and the town, often from quite a hostile point of view-love/hate, let's say. In a way, this stepping outside, in an attempt to judge enough to create a duplicate of it, makes you an outsider. . . . I think it's healthy for a writer to feel like an outsider. If you feel like an insider you get committed to a partisan view, you begin to defend interests, so you wind up not really empathizing with all mankind.”

IfsThinkingWayFeelsFirstsEnoughHomeHateInterestViewsMankindJudgingWindHealthyAccountsTownsCommittedPoint Of ViewOutsidersHostileLove HatePartisansInsidersDuplicateFirst Home
Author:John Updike
Create image

“Whatever art offered the men and women of previous eras, what it offers our own, it seems to me, is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit. The town I grew up in had many vacant lots; when I go back now, the vacant lots are gone. They were a luxury, just as tigers and rhinoceri, in the crowded world that is making, are luxuries. Museums and bookstores should feel, I think, like vacant lots - places where the demands on us are our own demands, where the spirit can find exercise in unsupervised play.”

ThinkingMenWorldFeelsShouldArtPlaySeemsSpiritCertainSpaceRoomsGoneGrewExerciseOffersDemandGrew UpMen And WomenTownsLuxuryErasBreathingMuseumsTigersCrowdedBookstoresVacant
Author:John Updike
Create image

“The breezes taste Of apple peel. The air is full Of smells to feel- Ripe fruit, old footballs, Burning brush, New books, erasers, Chalk, and such. The bee, his hive, Well-honeyed hum, And Mother cuts Chrysanthemums. Like plates washed clean With suds, the days Are polished with A morning haze.”

FeelsWellsBookMotherMorningCuttingAirFootballTasteCleanFruitSmellBurningApplesBeesPlatesSeptemberBrushesBreezeRipePolishedNew BooksHivesHazeChalkErasersRipe FruitChrysanthemums
Author:John Updike
Create image