"My transition from wanting to be a..." - Quote by John Updike
My transition from wanting to be a cartoonist to wanting to be a writer may have come about through that friendly opposition, that even-handed pairing, of pictures and words.
More by John Updike
“There is the fear that you somehow neglected to say what was really yours to say.”
“It skims in through the eye, and by means of the utterly delicate retina hurls shadows like insect legs inward for translation. Then an immense space opens up in silence and an endlessly fecund sub-universe the writer descends, and asks the reader to descend after him, not merely to gain instructions but also to experience delight, the delight of mind freed from matter and exultant in the strength it has stolen from matter.”
“Without books, we might just melt into the airwaves and be just another set of blips.”
More on Career
“Treat your career like a bad boyfriend...Your career wont take care of you. It won't call you back or introduce you to its parents. Your career will openly flirt with other people while you are around... You have to care about your work, but not about the result. You have to care about how good you are and how good you feel, but not about how good people think you are or how good people think you look.”
“In every work environment, there will be politics. If you really want to rise to the top, you need to figure out what those politics in your workplace are. Then, you hook it in. You decide what conforms and what does not conform to your personal code.”
“Never get married in college; it's hard to get a start if a prospective employer finds you've already made one mistake.”
More on Writing
“I always say, keep a diary and someday it'll keep you.”
“Modern poets add a lot of water to their ink.”
“Every writer making a secondary world wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it.”