John Updike Quotes

Coming from a very inarticulate family made me try to speak for those who can't express themselves and created a need for articulation at its most ceremonial - poetry.

Writing was in its origin, the voice of an absent person.

I'm ready for the opportunity to speak about things. I've always dreamed about the opportunity to speak about stuff.

I try to write an essay every time I speak.

I'm an intelligent man but I don't feel I articulate or get that across nearly enough, especially in social situations.

I love words, and I love that there's so many words available to make a point and to create a picture.

Ordinary people can be very articulate and very eloquent.

People find a way in which they can say something.

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.

I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.

Anyone who can not write should.

Personally there is first: imagination; second: the act of writing - and third: the act/act of vocalizing.

The written word has taught me to listen to the human voice, much as the great unchanging statues have taught me to appreciate bodily motions.

To choose to write is to reject silence.

My father said once that if I didn't have my mother's ginger hair, I wouldn't blush or curse as easily. Which I though was unfair. I hardly ever curse or blush, even though I've had plenty of days that required both.

Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

When you have an important story to tell, the words you need seem to come of their own accord.

I don't know. Sometimes I try to say what's on my mind and it comes out sounding like I ate a dictionary and I'm shitting pages. Sorry

Say what you mean. Say what you see. Make a photograph, if you can, for the reader.

Preaching and writing - it's the same. Whether I'm writing to speak or writing to be read in a book, it's the same thing.

Who speaks is not who writes, and who writes is not who is.

Words are the voice of the heart.

My family is filled with wonderful storytellers. I lack their gift of gab, so it's a relief to be able to write.

I act as the tongue of you, ... tied in your mouth . . . . in mine it begins to be loosened.