John Updike Quotes & Sayings

“Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.”

“Professionalism in art has this difficulty: To be professional is to be dependable, to be dependable is to be predictable, and predictability is esthetically boring - an anti-virtue in a field where we hope to be astonished and startled and at some deep level refreshed.”

“We are most alive when we're in love.”

“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.”

“America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.”

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

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

“A narrative is like a room on whose walls a number of false doors have been painted; while within the narrative, we have many apparent choices of exit, but when the author leads us to one particular door, we know it is the right one because it opens.”

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

“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.”