Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea. – John Updike
It rots a writers brain, it cretinises you. You say the same thing again and again, and when you do that happily youre well on the way to being a cretin. Or a politician. – John Updike
The essential support and encouragement comes from within, arising out of the mad notion that your society needs to know what only you can tell it. – John Updike
Customs and convictions change respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the change, and the ones most offended by fresh reflections of the facts in the mirror of art. – John Updike