"The illusion is an agreement between the..." - Quote by John Updike

“Now that I am sixty, I see why the idea of elder wisdom has passed from currency.”

“Perhaps I have written fiction because everything unambiguously expressed seems somehow crass to me; and when the subject is myself, I want to jeer and weep.”

“The educational aspect of art shows has become overbearing: some of exhibits can leave you bleary from trying to read the walls. Presumably a piece of art is timeless and it can say something to us. You are taking away the right of art to talk for itself.”

“Stories are as unique as the people who tell them, and the best stories are in which the ending is a surprise.”

“Fiction or fable allures to instruction.”

“Reality and Fiction are different in that fiction has to make sense.”

“Nulla (enim) res tantum ad dicendum proficit, quantum scriptio Nothing so much assists learning as writing down what we wish to remember.”

“Don't write for money. Write because you love to do something. If you write for money, you won't write anything worth reading.”

“This autobiography of mine is a mirror, and I am looking at myself in it all the time. Incidentally I notice the people that pass along at my back - I get glimpses of them in the mirror - and whenever they say or do anything that can help advertise me and flatter me and raise me in my own estimation, I set these things down in my autobiography.”