John Updike Quotes

One of the things that fascinates me most is when people are so charmed by the universe that it becomes part of their artistic output.

Art is the most beautiful deception of all. And although people try to incorporate the everyday events of life in it, we must hope that it will remain a deception lest it become a utilitarian thing, sad as a factory.

There's this feeling of creativity in Iceland.

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.

You don't base records on success; you base it on creativity.

What art does is it makes you feel alive and makes you feel like you're connected.

The crimes that become iconic etch themselves into the collective consciousness because they suggest a frightening truth: that the universe does not rely on cause and effect.

What I treasure most at any moment is intimacy, surprise, a sense of mystery, wit, depth and love. A handful of cherished friends offer me this, and the occasional singer or film-maker or artist. But my most reliable sources of electricity are Henry David Thoreau, Shakespeare, Melville and Emily Dickinson.

The job of art is to chase ugliness away.

Art requires philosophy, just as philosophy requires art. Otherwise, what would become of beauty?

I have a desire to create more film, more beauty, more art, more love, but I don't feel desperate. It's not about creating or building a career.

Who would dare assign to art the sterile function of imitating nature?

The real universe has a marvellous and unique quality, inasmuch as it and only it can take us completely by surprise.

When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection.

It's a strange world. Let's keep it that way.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

To say the word Romanticism is to say modern art - that is, intimacy, spirituality, color, aspiration towards the infinite, expressed by every means available to the arts.

All creatures are flawed, but out of the flaw may come the universe.

Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art.

I don't want to deal with big, grand themes in my stories; art has nothing to do with themes. When you deal with themes, you are not creating; you are lecturing.

The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it.

Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.

With just one polka dot, nothing can be achieved. In the universe, there is the sun, the moon, the earth, and hundreds of millions of stars. All of us live in the unfathomable mystery and infinitude of the universe. Pursuing 'philosophy of the universe' through art under such circumstances has led me to what I call 'stereotypical repetition.'

Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.