Quotes by John Updike

About John Updike:

John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic.
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

I think you remember certain phrases from bad reviews. You don't remember all the bad reviews.

John Updike

My actinic keratosis is a result of the triumphalism of the beach. The sun exacerbates it.

John Updike

It is in middles that extremes clash, where ambiguity restlessly rules.

John Updike

In any interview, you do say more or less than you mean.

John Updike

Memory has a spottiness, as if the film was sprinkled with developer instead of immersed in it.

John Updike

If my mother hadn't been trying to be a writer, I don't know if I would have thought of it myself.

John Updike

I've always tried to write about America. It's very worth a writer's effort.

John Updike

In a city like New York, you're aware of the rich and poor.

John Updike

In tennis, there is the forehand, the backhand, the overhead smash and the drop volley, all with a different grip.

John Updike

My interest generally is the hidden Americans; the ones who live far away from the headlines.

John Updike

My wife and I had children when we were children ourselves.

John Updike

My first ambition was to be an animator for Walt Disney. Then I wanted to be a magazine cartoonist.

John Updike

Our artistic heroes tend to be those self-exercisers, like Picasso, and Nabokov, and Wallace Stevens, who rather defiantly kept playing past dark.

John Updike

My father taught only math.

John Updike

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

John Updike

New York is a city with virtually no habitable public space - only private spaces expensively maintained within the general disaster.

John Updike

Publishers are looking for blockbusters - all the world loves a megaseller.

John Updike

Reagan has turned America into a tax haven.

John Updike

The Internet doesn't like you to learn too much about explosives.

John Updike

The miracle of turning inklings into thoughts and thoughts into words and words into metal and print and ink never palls for me.

John Updike

The first author I met socially was Joyce Cary.

John Updike

Author Bio

  • NameJohn Updike
  • DescriptionAmerican novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic
  • AliasesJohn Hoyer Updike
  • BornMarch 18, 1932
  • DiedJanuary 27, 2009
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPoet; Writer; Novelist; Essayist
  • WorksThe Witches Of Eastwick
  • AwardsCommandeur Des Arts Et Des Lettres?; National Medal Of Arts; National Humanities Medal; National Book Award