John Updike Quotes

...a sense of defeat the years have brought back to him, after what seemed for a while to be triumphs.

John Updike

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Quotes to Explore

• I don't have a daily routine, beyond brushing my teeth. It changes every day.

  

  Paloma Faith
  • Day
  • Daily
  • Changes

• Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.

  

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
  • Fall
  • Speak
  • Communication

• The only prejudice I've found anywhere in TV is in some advertising agencies, and there isn't so much prejudice as just fear.

  

  Nat King Cole
  • Fear
  • Prejudice
  • Advertising

• Travel is impossible, but daydreaming about travel is easy.

  

  B. J. Novak
  • Travel
  • Easy
  • Impossible

• I'm a big believer in keeping the stage directions really tight.

  

  Edgar Wright
  • Stage
  • Big
  • Tight

• Being black, Latino, or Asian is not a genre. Romantic comedies, thrillers, action - those are genres. I think there's a lot of people who want to have the conversation. I don't think people are afraid of it, I just think it's the time to have that conversation. Race is not a genre.

  

  Mara Brock Akil
  • People
  • Time
  • Black

• In becoming a citizen, one undertakes certain duties and responsibilities. One of the more intangible of those duties and responsibilities is no matter what one's birth and background, to accept the historical past of the new country as one's own.

  

  J. M. Coetzee
  • Country
  • Past
  • Birth

• Too many actors get on an ego trip and won't do commercials, so they sit around for 20 years between jobs.

  

  Vic Tayback
  • Years
  • Ego
  • Sit

• I talk to the universe all the time.

  

  Ted Lange
  • Time
  • Universe
  • Talk

• As far as Irish writers being great, I think the fact that there have been two languages in Ireland for a very long time; there has obviously been a shared energy between those two languages.

  

  Garry Hynes
  • Time
  • Great
  • Long

• Simply put, our nation's economy will only go as far as our small businesses will take it.

  

  Sam Graves
  • Small
  • Economy
  • Nation

• As an actor, I'm in such a privileged position because my work is job by job. If something doesn't fit in with family life, there's more flexibility.

  

  Natasha Little
  • Life
  • Work
  • Family

• Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap - let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.

  

  Abraham Lincoln
  • American
  • Mother
  • Justice

• I've got a particular way of writing novels, and that carries over into the way I write comics and games, too. I'm a news journalist by background, so I approach everything as reporting - I treat it as real, I ask the questions I'd ask in a real situation, and I let the characters speak for themselves.

  

  Karen Traviss
  • Writing
  • Real
  • Speak

• To a poet nothing can be useless.

  

  Samuel Johnson

• We were snatched away and given alone into the hands of people who believed that it was their duty to break us and remake us in the Christian American image. And, of course, breaking people is much easier than putting them together again.So much agony caused, so much evil done in God’s name.

  

  Octavia E. Butler
  • People
  • God
  • Done

• Without Art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without Science, we should always worship false gods.

  

  W. H. Auden
  • Art
  • Science

• A true delineation of the smallest man is capable of interesting the greatest man.

  

  Thomas Carlyle
  • Man
  • Interesting
  • Delineation

• I heard somewhere that whenever you write a book, people will ask you One Question about it over and over. And while I'm no expert in these matters, this is proving to be true. My first book dealt with a not-that-pleasant degenerate type, and the One Question was, 'Is this an autobiographical story?'

  

  Patrick deWitt
  • People
  • Book
  • True

• I've done so many interviews that I've gotten past the ego and the personality. I used to feel that there might be something missing, but a few years ago I realized that I was so causative over how the interview went that I was no longer concerned over the effects of the interview.

  

  John Travolta
  • Done
  • Past
  • Personality

• In the company of the accomplished, people hope it will rub off on themselves, in the company of the misfortunate, they fear it!

  

  Bryant H. McGill
  • People
  • Hope
  • Fear

• Blessed are the idiots, for they are happiest people on earth.

  

  Barry Hughart
  • Earth
  • Blessed
  • Idiot

• ...a sense of defeat the years have brought back to him, after what seemed for a while to be triumphs.

  

  John Updike