John Updike Quotes

When you're driving into D.C. as a young kid and you go over the Key Bridge and see the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and Capitol Building, they become a part of the landscape for you. You are also constantly in contact with this idea that history, and the people that made it, are being remembered.

The Smithsonian museums are among this country's most endearing treasures and I look forward to helping maintain and enhance their coveted works of art.

We say arts education is good for general education, but that's not the point. The arts are what great nations are remembered for. They are a mirror.

Awaken a feeling that our ancient buildings are not mere ecclesiastical toys, but sacred monuments of the nation's growth and hope.

All through history, a nation or a civilization's enduring glory is articulated by its mega constructions - the pyramids, the lofty cathedrals of the Christian world.

The Rockwell magazine cover was more a part of the American reality than a record of it.

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.

When smashing monuments, save the pedestals - they always come in handy.

All these actors who died before I was born, all the theaters and the artistic movements - all that stuff fills you up and makes you feel like you're the inheritor of all this information and of all its passion.

All the things that are part of your heritage make you British - that makes this country what it is. It's part of your history. And here, unlike America, it's still living history.

Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.

America was based on a poetic vision. What will happen when it loses its poetry?

The history of jazz lets us know that this period in our history is not the only period we've come through together. If we truly understood the history of our national arts, we'd know that we have mutual aspirations, a shared history, in good times and bad.

In these confused times, the role of classical music is at the very core of the struggle to reassert cultural and ethical values that have always characterized our country and for which we have traditionally been honored and respected outside our shores.

It is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture. That which I have insisted upon as the life of the whole, that spirit which is given only by the hand and eye of the workman, can never be recalled.

In general it can be said that a nation's art is greatest when it most reflects the character of its people.

Art is exalted above religion and race. Not a single solitary soul these days believes in the religions of the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Greeks... Only their art, whenever it was beautiful, stands proud and exalted, rising above all time.

We must teach our people the greatness of China's historical culture. In our educational program we must stress Chinese history and geography so that all may know and appreciate China's civilization of five thousand years and the far-flung boundaries of our ancient race. This will engender a greater faith in our own future.

And it is very moving because one has to see the site not as just another site of development but it is a very special site. It is a site that souls and hearts of all Americans.

No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language.

Not only the Archivist alone but all who work for NARA are designated custodians of America's national memory.

A nation's poets are its true owners; and by the stroke of the pen they convey the title-deeds of its real possessions to strangers and aliens.

There is no nation in the world greater, older or more honorable than the Turkish nation, nor has one been seen in the history of humanity.

With monuments as with men, position means everything.

The history of this country is told by showing people who have contributed to it.