John Updike

To be President of the United States, sir, is to act as advocate for a blind, venomous, and ungrateful client. ↗

— John Updike

#advocate #blind #client #president #sir

We are most alive when we're in love. ↗

— John Updike

#alive #most

Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better. ↗

— John Updike

#activity #any #becomes #better #cares

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

— John Updike

#every #except #last #moment #survive

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea. ↗

— John Updike

#fiction #hugging #open #poetry #sailing

A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience. ↗

— John Updike

#adult #bore #consumes #each #half

An affair wants to spill, to share its glory with the world. No act is so private it does not seek applause. ↗

— John Updike

#affair #applause #does #glory #private

Customs and convictions change; respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the change, and the ones most offended by fresh reflections of the facts in the mirror of art. ↗

— John Updike

#art #change #convictions #customs #facts

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

#comes #encouragement #essential #know #mad

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

— John Updike

#dreams #incite #nature #possibility #them