John Updike

The reader knows the writer better than he knows himself; but the writer's physical presence is light from a star that has moved on.

It is not an aesthetic misstep to make the viewer aware of the paint and the painter's hand. Such an empathetic awareness lies at the heart of aesthetic appreciation.

There's almost nothing worse to live with than a struggling artist.

Truth should not be forced; it should simply manifest itself, like a woman who has in her privacy reflected and coolly decided to bestow herself upon a certain man.

Being naked approaches being revolutionary; going barefoot is mere populism.

Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.

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

I was raised in the Depression, when there was a great sense of dog-eat-dog and people fighting over scraps.

It's sort of good to see your vocation as a daily task and have fairly modest expectations for financial or reward in other coin - glory, love, whatever.

All love comes from the family.

Belief, like love, must be voluntary.

Publishers are looking for blockbusters - all the world loves a megaseller.