Quotes by John Updike

Explore a curated collection of 73 quotes by John Updike. Discover timeless wisdom, insightful thoughts, and memorable words that have inspired readers around the world. Browse through the gallery below and click on any quote to read more.

The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding. — John Updike
Being able to write becomes a kind of shield, a way of hiding, a way of too instantly transforming pain into honey. — John Updike
What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit. — John Updike
[I]n my own case at least I feel my professional need for freedom of speech and expression prejudices me toward a govern — John Updike
To say that war is madness is like saying that sex is madness: true enough, from the standpoint of a stateless eunuch, b — John Updike
Children are not a zoo of entertainingly exotic creatures, but an array of mirrors in which the human predicament leaps — John Updike
Know Thyself, a wise old Greek once said. Know Thyself. Now what does this mean, boys and girls? It means, be what you a — John Updike
My first thought, as a child, was that the artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and that he — John Updike
On the single strand of wire strung to bring our house electricity, grackles and starlings neatly punctuated an invisibl — John Updike
There is no doubt that I have lots of words inside me; but at moments, like rush-hour traffic at the mouth of a tunnel, — John Updike
No matter how cheerful and blameless the day’s activities have been, when you wake in the middle of the night there is g — John Updike
One does not go to Moscow to get fat. — John Updike
Suddenly summoned to witness something great and horrendous, we keep fighting not to reduce it to our own smallness. — John Updike
Chinese food in Texas is the best Chinese food in the United States except Boston. — John Updike
She had willed herself open to him and knew that the chemistry of love was all within her, her doing. Even his power to — John Updike
I was made to feel I could do things. If you get this feeling early and can hold it until you're 15, you tend to never l — John Updike
There is no such thing as static happiness. Happiness is a mixed thing, a thing compounded of sacrifices, and losses, an — John Updike
From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few. — John Updike
Perhaps we meet our heaven at the start and not the end of life. — John Updike
The dead teach this great lesson, which we are loathe to learn: we too will die. — John Updike