American - Novelist | March 18, 1932 - January 27, 2009
To guarantee the individual maximum freedom within a social frame of minimal laws ensures - if not happiness - its hopeful pursuit.
John Updike
HappinessFreedomFrameWithinLaws
I picked up 'On Moral Fiction' in the bookstore and looked up myself in the index, but I didn't read it through. I try not to read things that depress me.
MyselfMeMoralTryUpFiction
The writers we tend to universally admire, like Beckett, or Kafka, or TS Eliot, are not very prolific.
AdmireLikeVeryUniversallyTend
In art, anything goes, and if it goes, it goes.
ArtAnythingGoes
There's almost nothing worse to live with than a struggling artist.
LiveArtistNothingAlmostWorse
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.
LifeWorkGreatYouDeskTry
I should mention something that nobody ever thinks about, but proofreading takes a lot of time. After you write something, there are these proofs that keep coming, and there's this panicky feeling that 'This is me and I must make it better.'
TimeMeBetterYouFeelingNobody
Some stories or passages are more difficult and demand more fussing with than others, but, in general, I'm a two-draft writer rather than a six-draft writer, or whatever.
OthersMoreDifficultWhateverThan
For some of us, books are intrinsic to our sense of personal identity.
IdentityPersonalUsSenseBooks
It's so hard to make a good tee shot after a birdie.
GoodHardMakeShotTeeAfter
Most Americans haven't had my happy experience of living for thirteen years in a seventeenth-century house, since most of America lacks seventeenth-century houses.
ExperienceHappyAmericaHouseYears
A seventeenth-century house can be recognized by its steep roof, massive central chimney and utter porchlessness. Some of those houses have a second-story overhang, emphasizing their medieval look.
LookHouseRoofSomeChimneyHouses
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict John Updike quotes