Quotes by John Updike - AI Generated Quotes

John Updike

Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.

-John Updike

alone

I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

-John Updike

alone

What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.

-John Updike

art

Customs and convictions change respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the change, and the ones most offended by fresh reflections of the facts in the mirror of art.

-John Updike

art

Customs and convictions change respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the change, and the ones most offended by fresh reflections of the facts in the mirror of art.

-John Updike

change

Dreams come true without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.

-John Updike

dreams

The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education.

-John Updike

education

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

-John Updike

experience

I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

-John Updike

government

Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.

-John Updike

government

Most of American life consists of driving somewhere and then returning home, wondering why the hell you went.

-John Updike

home

A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.

-John Updike

leadership

We are most alive when we're in love.

-John Updike

love

Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and a learner.

-John Updike

marriage

That a marriage ends is less than ideal but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.

-John Updike

marriage

The first breath of adultery is the freest after it, constraints aping marriage develop.

-John Updike

marriage

Each morning my characters greet me with misty faces willing, though chilled, to muster for another day's progress through the dazzling quicksand the marsh of blank paper.

-John Updike

morning

Dreams come true without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.

-John Updike

nature

A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience.

-John Updike

patience

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.

-John Updike

poetry

Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life.

-John Updike

religion

The inner spaces that a good story lets us enter are the old apartments of religion.

-John Updike

religion

Americans have been conditioned to respect newness, whatever it costs them.

-John Updike

respect

The essential support and encouragement comes from within, arising out of the mad notion that your society needs to know what only you can tell it.

-John Updike

society

Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five.

-John Updike

sports

Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and a learner.

-John Updike

teacher

Truth should not be forced it should simply manifest itself, like a woman who has in her privacy reflected and coolly decided to bestow herself upon a certain man.

-John Updike

truth

Now that I am sixty, I see why the idea of elder wisdom has passed from currency.

-John Updike

wisdom

The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education.

John Updike

Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.

I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.

Customs and convictions change respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the change, and the ones most offended by fresh reflections of the facts in the mirror of art.

Customs and convictions change respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the change, and the ones most offended by fresh reflections of the facts in the mirror of art.

Dreams come true without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.

The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education.

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

I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.

Most of American life consists of driving somewhere and then returning home, wondering why the hell you went.

A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.

We are most alive when we're in love.

Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and a learner.

That a marriage ends is less than ideal but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.

The first breath of adultery is the freest after it, constraints aping marriage develop.

Each morning my characters greet me with misty faces willing, though chilled, to muster for another day's progress through the dazzling quicksand the marsh of blank paper.

Dreams come true without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.

A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience.

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.

Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life.

The inner spaces that a good story lets us enter are the old apartments of religion.

Americans have been conditioned to respect newness, whatever it costs them.

The essential support and encouragement comes from within, arising out of the mad notion that your society needs to know what only you can tell it.

Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five.

Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and a learner.

Truth should not be forced it should simply manifest itself, like a woman who has in her privacy reflected and coolly decided to bestow herself upon a certain man.

Now that I am sixty, I see why the idea of elder wisdom has passed from currency.

The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education.

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