Wickedness was like food: once you got started it was hard to stop; the gut expanded to take in more and more.
John UpdikeI will try not to panic, to keep my standard of living modest and to work steadily, even shyly, in the spirit of those medieval carvers who so fondly sculpted the undersides of choir seats.
John UpdikeWhat is the past, after all, but a vast sheet of darkness in which a few moments, pricked apparently at random, shine?
John UpdikeWriting doesn't require drive. It's like saying a chicken has to have drive to lay an egg.
John UpdikeHope bases vast premises on foolish accidents, and reads a word where in fact only a scribble exists.
John UpdikeI 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