The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all. John Updike More Quotes by John Updike More Quotes From John Updike The throat: how strange, that there is not more erotic emphasis upon it. For here, through this compound pulsing pillar, our life makes its leap into spirit, and in the other direction gulps down what it needs of the material world. John Updike pillars erotic world Green grass, green grandstands, green concession stalls, green paper cups, green folding chairs and visors for sale, green and white ropes, green-topped Georgia pines. If justice were poetic, Hubert Green would win it every year. John Updike white winning years You cannot help but learn more as take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is and old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it. John Updike graduation inspirational hands We are living in a world in which we don't give the young enough reason to live. The temper and the lyrics of a lot of punk music and so on is very, life sucks and then you die, sort of theory. I feel life is cheaper and death is more attractive now than it was when I was an adolescent, as I remember. Suicide was a personal pathology when it was committed. There was no society approval of it, like there certainly is in Palestine and some quarters of Iraq. John Updike life-sucks suicide giving Pressed, I would define spirituality as the shadow of light humanity casts as it moves through the darkness of everything that can be explained. John Updike light darkness moving Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he had to say in his works. John Updike 20th-century century said But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of his verse, the poet walks gagged through his own biography. John Updike phrases biographies two Life is like an overlong drama through which we sit being nagged by the vague memories of having read the reviews. John Updike drama memories life We were all brought up to want things and maybe the world isn't big enough for all that wanting. I don't know. I don't know anything John Updike enough want world Faith is not so much a binary pole as a quantum state, which tends to indeterminacy when closely examined. John Updike binary quantum states Baseball is meant to be fun, and not all the solemn money-men in fur-collared greatcoats, not all the scruffy media cameramen and sour-faced reporters that crowd around the dugouts can quite smother the exhilarating spaciousness and grace of this impudently relaxed sport, a game of innumerable potential redemptions and curious disappointments. John Updike baseball fun sports An American in London...cannot but be impressed and charmed by the city. The momumentality of Washington, the thriving business of New York, the antique intimacy of Boston, plus a certain spacious and open feeling reminiscent of Denver and San Francisco-all these he finds combined for his pleasure. John Updike boston cities new-york We are cruel enough without meaning to be. John Updike enough The physicists are getting down to the nitty-gritty, they've really just about pared things down to the ultimate details, and the last thing they ever expected to happen is happening. God is showing through. John Updike physicist details lasts Life, too much of it, and not enough. The fear that it will end some day, and the fear that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday. John Updike too-much yesterday life I'm not against TV; I don't go on the morning talk shows because I'm not invited. If I was, I might go. John Updike goes-on morning might All dancing is now is standing in place and letting the devil of the music enter you. John Updike devil dancing dance The illusion is an agreement between the reader and writer that this [story] will be like life. The emotional temperature drops when you have footnotes. John Updike emotional agreement stories I write about, more or less, everything I can think of, that is I stretch my imagination as far as it'll go. I am kind of stuck in the middle as far as my life goes, and hence my imagination tends to zero in on things which are indeed in the middle. That is, I don't write about the very rich, who I scarcely know, or the very poor who I don't know very well either. John Updike zero writing thinking The educational aspect of art shows has become overbearing: some of exhibits can leave you bleary from trying to read the walls. Presumably a piece of art is timeless and it can say something to us. You are taking away the right of art to talk for itself. John Updike wall educational art
