Hemingway describes literary New York as a bottle full of tapeworms trying to feed on each other. John Updike More Quotes by John Updike More Quotes From John Updike Many men are more faithful to their golf partners than to their wives and have stuck with them longer. John Updike wifegolfmen Money is like water in a leaky bucket: no sooner there, it begins to drip. John Updike bucketswater A photograph offers us a glimpse into the abyss of time. John Updike abyssglimpsephotograph What you haven't done by thirty you're not likely to do. What you have done you'll do lots more. John Updike thirtydonehavens Try to develop actual work habits, and even though you have a busy life, try to reserve an hour, say - or more - a day to write. Some very good things have been written on an hour a day. John Updike busywritingtrying The heart prefers to move against the grain of circumstance; perversity is the souls very life. John Updike hearthistorymoving You can never get the smell of smoke out. Like the smell of failure in life. John Updike failure-in-lifesmelllife 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 madsupportencouragement We are most alive when we're in love. John Updike marriagealivelove A computer and a cat are somewhat alike - they both purr, and like to be stroked, and spend a lot of the day motionless. They also have secrets they don't necessarily share. John Updike computercatsecret Is not the decisive difference between comedy and tragedy that tragedy denies us another chance? John Updike another-chancedifferencestragedy America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy. John Updike truthinspirationalamerica We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one. John Updike lastsmomentsliterature What is the past, after all, but a vast sheet of darkness in which a few moments, pricked apparently at random, shine? John Updike shiningdarknesspast What we need is progress with an escape hatch. John Updike progressneeds I remember one English teacher in the eighth grade, Florence Schrack, whose husband also taught at the high school. I thought what she said made sense, and she parsed sentences on the blackboard and gave me, I'd like to think, some sense of English grammar and that there is a grammar, that those commas serve a purpose and that a sentence has a logic, that you can break it down. I've tried not to forget those lessons, and to treat the English language with respect as a kind of intricate tool. John Updike husbandteacherschool The breezes taste Of apple peel. The air is full Of smells to feel- Ripe fruit, old footballs, Burning brush, New books, erasers, Chalk, and such. The bee, his hive, Well-honeyed hum, And Mother cuts Chrysanthemums. Like plates washed clean With suds, the days Are polished with A morning haze. John Updike mothermorningfootball Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress Its music lest it should not find An echo in another's mind. John Updike echoesnaturemen Life, just as we first thought, is playing grownup. John Updike grownupslifefirsts My only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me-to give the mundane its beautiful due. John Updike beautifulgivingreality
