John Updike Quotes

To be a working writer is the holy grail, where you don't have three other jobs on top of that.

At this stage, my chief professional goal is simply to keep on writing and making a living at it.

It is indeed difficult to make a living as a writer, and my advice to anyone contemplating a literary career is to have some other trade.

My aunt could never understand how writing could be a full-time job. She'd keep asking when I'd get a real job!

I've had a few jobs, but if you want to be a writer, you're better off getting a job that doesn't require that you do anything.

I may not have become a good writer, but I managed to make a living out of writing.

I've been a writer for 42 years and, yes, it is a full time job for me. Not a hobby, but serious work.

But whatever my failure, I have this thing to remember - that I was a pioneer in my profession, just as my grandfathers were in theirs, in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.

I got a couple of stories published, but the kind of money you were making for publishing a short story, I could see I wasn't going to make a living at it.

I tell young people who ask me about a future in writing not to go into it unless they get married to someone rich.

Writing was my first occupation, begun at age 23.

I'm still very blunt: If you want to be a writer, get a day job. The fact that I have actually been able to make a living at it is astonishing.

I don't teach writing classes anymore, and I'm really glad I don't, because I would feel very strange about telling people, 'Go out there and be a writer, and make a living from it.'

I've been writing full-time since I was 23.

The idea that you could make a living from writing always thrilled me.

I knew I wanted to write professionally and get paid.

This sounds like a cliche, but I always wanted to write. After college, I did some writing and realized very quickly that it's hard to make a living as a writer. At that point, I was more interested in fiction writing.

Being a professional writer is not an easy way to make a living.

I didn't think being a writer was a fancy thing. It was a job like any other job, except apparently you could do it at home.

I was always told you're not going to make much money from writing. You can actually do it. Now I've built a really good, big house out of words.

Somebody's always getting me to come lecture to their writing class, and I don't talk about writing at all, I talk about the business of making a living at this racket.

If you're going to write for a living, you should find something fun to write.

On a more practical level, anyone out there who wants to be a writer should clearly recognize that this is a brutal business, where even incredibly talented people sometimes never make a living. If you want to chase such a dream, please have a Plan B in place.

I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death. They thought nobody can make a living from being a writer in Brazil. They were not wrong.

The only real reason to write professionally is that you love it enough.