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John Updike

Explore inspiring quotes by John Updike, a remarkable figure whose words continue to inspire and motivate people around the world.

29

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22

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1

Avg. Length

marriage

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Top Categories by John Updike

Discover the themes and topics this author explores most

marriage

3 quotes

alone

2 quotes

art

2 quotes

wisdom

2 quotes

government

2 quotes

religion

2 quotes

change

1 quotes

dreams

1 quotes

Featured Quotes by John Updike

Some of the most memorable quotes from this author

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

— John Updikealone

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

— John Updikealone

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

— John Updikeart

"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 Updikeart

"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 Updikechange

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

— John Updikedreams

All Quotes by John Updike

Browse all quotes from this author

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

-John Updike

aloneView Quote

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

-John Updike

aloneView Quote

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

-John Updike

"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

"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

changeView Quote

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

-John Updike

dreamsView Quote

"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

educationView Quote

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

-John Updike

experienceView Quote

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

-John Updike

governmentView Quote

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

-John Updike

governmentView Quote

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

-John Updike

"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

leadershipView Quote

"We are most alive when we're in love."

-John Updike

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

-John Updike

marriageView Quote

"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

marriageView Quote

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

-John Updike

marriageView Quote

"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

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

-John Updike

natureView Quote

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

-John Updike

patienceView Quote

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

-John Updike

poetryView Quote

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

-John Updike

religionView Quote

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

-John Updike

religionView Quote

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

-John Updike

respectView Quote

"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

societyView Quote

"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

sportsView Quote

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

-John Updike

teacherView Quote

"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

truthView Quote

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

-John Updike

wisdomView Quote

"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

wisdomView Quote

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