We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great extent, to be sociable.

Quote by John Updike

Topics: John Updike Quotes

The city overwhelmed our expectations. The Kiplingesque grandeur of Waterloo Station, the Eliotic despondency of...

The city overwhelmed our expectations. The Kiplingesque grandeur of Waterloo Station, the Eliotic despondency of...

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing...

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing...

Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying

Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying

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...

How do you write women so well? I think of a man and I take...

How do you write women so well? I think of a man and I take...

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...

That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and...

That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and...

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....

Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered.

Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered.

But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of...

But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of...

The inner spaces that a good story lets us enter are the old apartments of...

The inner spaces that a good story lets us enter are the old apartments of...

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...

We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one.

We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one.

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.

Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he...

Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he...

Each morning my characters greet me with misty faces willing, though chilled, to muster for...

Each morning my characters greet me with misty faces willing, though chilled, to muster for...

Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would...

Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would...

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,...

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...

A narrative is like a room on whose walls a number of false doors have...

A narrative is like a room on whose walls a number of false doors have...