Author: John Updike

Quotes

What interests me is why men think of women as witches. It's because they're so fascinating and exasperating, so other.

What interests me is why men think of women as witches. It's because they're so fascinating and exasperating, so other.

- John Updike

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.

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.

- John Updike

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

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

- John Updike

I don't know; I think I'd be gloomy without some faith that there is a purpose and there is a kind of witness to my life.

I don't know; I think I'd be gloomy without some faith that there is a purpose and there is a kind of witness to my life.

- John Updike

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

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

- John Updike

The study of literature threatens to become a kind of paleontology of failure, and criticism a supercilious psychoanalysis of authors.

The study of literature threatens to become a kind of paleontology of failure, and criticism a supercilious psychoanalysis of authors.

- John Updike

To be a human being is to be in a state of tension between your appetites and your dreams, and the social realities around you and your obligations to your fellow man.

To be a human being is to be in a state of tension between your appetites and your dreams, and the social realities around you and your obligations to your fellow man.

- John Updike

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.

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

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

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

- John Updike

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