Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right or better.

Quote by John Updike

Topics: John Updike Quotes

The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents....

The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents....

The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions,...

The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions,...

Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them

Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them

A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own...

A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own...

An affair wants to spill, to share its glory with the world. No act is...

An affair wants to spill, to share its glory with the world. No act is...

Writers take words seriously-perhaps the last professional class that does-and they struggle to steer their...

Writers take words seriously-perhaps the last professional class that does-and they struggle to steer their...

There's a crystallization that goes on in a poem which the young man can bring...

There's a crystallization that goes on in a poem which the young man can bring...

Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players...

Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players...

By the time a partnership dissolves, it has dissolved.

By the time a partnership dissolves, it has dissolved.

Customs and convictions change; respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the...

Customs and convictions change; respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the...

Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players...

Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players...

Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered.

Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered.

Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and...

Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and...

When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a...

When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a...

The essential self is innocent, and when it tastes its own innocence knows that it...

The essential self is innocent, and when it tastes its own innocence knows that it...

The essential support and encouragement comes from within, arising out of the mad notion that...

The essential support and encouragement comes from within, arising out of the mad notion that...

I secretly understood: the primitive appeal of the hearth. Television is-its irresistible charm-a fire.

I secretly understood: the primitive appeal of the hearth. Television is-its irresistible charm-a fire.

We have archeology on television, and I quite like it; its a sort of detective...

We have archeology on television, and I quite like it; its a sort of detective...

Television is not vulgar because people are vulgar; it is vulgar because people are similar...

Television is not vulgar because people are vulgar; it is vulgar because people are similar...

If vaudeville had died, television was the box they put it in.

If vaudeville had died, television was the box they put it in.