John Updike Quotes

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

John Updike

• Writing
• Poetry
• Sea
• Criticism
• Sailing

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• So people think I'm lying about my age all the time? It's the records that are wrong. I've never told anyone how old I am. The minute they ask me, I say 'That's none of your business.' So that means I've never once lied about my age. Now that's true!

  

  Calista Flockhart
  • People
  • Time
  • Business

• The difference between a violin and a viola is that a viola burns longer.

  

  Victor Borge
  • Difference
  • VIolin
  • Viola

• In truth, opinion may be taken for understanding; understanding cannot be taken for opinion. How so? Surely because opinion may be deceived; understanding cannot be. If it could, it would not be understanding but opinion. For true understanding has not only certain truth, but the knowledge of truth.

  

  Saint Bernard
  • May
  • Truth
  • True

• The environmental movement, like all political processes, reacts best to disasters. But these are very slow, very gradual disasters in the making.

  

  Ted Danson
  • Political
  • Best
  • Environmental

• There are no opportune times for a penalty, and this is not one of those times.

  

  Jack Youngblood
  • Times
  • Penalty
  • Those

• I know people think that a lot of sports stars are a little bit up themselves, but they all have their heroes, too.

  

  Gary Lineker
  • People
  • Up
  • Sports

• I love people who break boundaries and always create something new and fresh.

  

  Randy Jackson Breakfast Club
  • People
  • Create
  • Break

• It's a great feat for me to have broken my world record.

  

  Usain Bolt
  • World
  • Great
  • Broken

• I loathe bad theater and most theatre is very bad because it's repetitious, unexciting and, dangerously, it is sometimes praised for those things.

  

  Fiona Shaw
  • Bad
  • Sometimes
  • Theatre

• The very idea of marriage is basic to recognition as equals in our society; any status short of that is inferior, unjust, and unconstitutional.

  

  Ted Olson
  • Society
  • Marriage
  • Short

• Anti-religious sneers are a hallmark of perpetual adolescents.

  

  Camille Paglia
  • Religious
  • Religion
  • Hallmark

• Acting is something that I always wanted, but I never paid attention to the notion that it might actually work out. You have all sorts of ideas about what you want to do - at one stage, I wanted to be a jockey - but this is the one that's a big deal.

  

  Olivia Thirlby
  • Work
  • Attention
  • Ideas

• The University of South Carolina has always played a role in my life and the intellectual life of South Carolina.

  

  Pat Conroy
  • Life
  • My Life
  • Intellectual

• 'Wicked' gave us a story that 'The Wizard of Oz' did not. Two sides to every story.

  

  Abbi Glines
  • Story
  • Two
  • Sides

• Personal responsibility is not only recognizing the errors of our ways. Personal responsibility lies in our willingness and ability to correct those errors individually and collectively.

  

  Yehuda Berg
  • Responsibility
  • Lies
  • Ability

• I am the luckiest novelist in the world. I was a first-time novelist who wasn't awash in rejection slips, whose manuscript didn't disappear in slush piles. I have had a wonderful time.

  

  Vikas Swarup
  • Time
  • Wonderful
  • Rejection

• Whenever I write a new song, it always happens when I come back from Europe or Egypt or something like that. It's always from travelling.

  

  Yuna
  • Song
  • Always
  • Egypt

• If I had been straight, I would have been an entirely different person. I would never have turned toward writing with a burning desire to confess, to understand, to justify myself in the eyes of others... I wouldn't have been impelled to live in New York and choose the hard poverty of bohemia over the soft comfort of the business world.

  

  Edmund White
  • World
  • Different
  • Writing

• Well I don't know why I came here tonight.I got the feeling that something ain't right.I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs.Clowns to the left of me,Jokers to the right, here I am,Stuck in the middle with you.

  

  Gerry Rafferty
  • Why
  • Feeling
  • Fall

• I wouldn't go blonde. I'd like to do a darker color - a really dark, dark red.

  

  Lourdes Leon Ciccone
  • Dark
  • Color
  • Red

• Ninety-nine point nine percent of the people that are gun owners are very responsible.

  

  Jan Brewer
  • People
  • Gun

• In short, finance gives you the opportunity to dramatically increase your consumption by doing nothing—or, more precisely, by choosing not to consume everything you produce today, but instead providing the productive economy with savings that can be used to generate additional economic value with minimal effort on your part. For all of the demonization of financiers, this is as close to magic as you can get.

  

  Yaron Brook
  • Finance
  • Consumption

• For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn't know we needed and take us places where we didn't know we didn't want to go. As we stumble through the crazily altered landscape of our lives, we find that God is enjoying our attention as never before.

  

  Kathleen Norris
  • Attention
  • Grace
  • Places

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

  

  John Updike
  • Writing
  • Poetry
  • Sea