John Updike

Birth: 1932-03-18 , Reading

Death: 2009-01-27 , Danvers

John Updike was an acclaimed American writer, known for his elegant prose and for exploring the lives of the American middle class, focusing on the complexities of human relationships, sexuality, and spirituality. His novels and short stories often portray suburban life and the existential dilemmas of his characters.

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Poems List

The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one’s obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.

Art imitates Nature in this: not to dare is to dwindle.

I am sometimes visited by the heretical thought that there is no such thing as good and bad architecture, any more than there is good and bad nature. It is all in where you stand at the time.

A soggy little island huffing and puffing to keep up with Western Europe.

The heart prefers to move against the grain of circumstance; perversity is the soul’s very life.

Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.

I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

Art is like baby shoes. When you coat them with gold, they can no longer be worn.

The founding fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents.

Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.

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John Updike was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, on March 18, 1932. Throughout his prolific career, he published over twenty novels, ten short story collections, and several books of poetry and essays. He is particularly famous for his novel series about the character Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, which includes "Rabbit, Run" (1960), "Rabbit Redux" (1971), "Rabbit Is Rich" (1981), and "Rabbit at Rest" (1990). Updike received numerous literary awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction. His detailed and lyrical writing established him as one of the great stylists of American literature. He died in Danvers, Massachusetts, on January 27, 2009.