More quotes by John Updike

"What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit."
"American art in general... takes to surreal exaggerations and metaphors; but its Puritan work ethic has little use for the playful self-indulgence behind Parisian Surrealism."
"Art is like baby shoes. When you coat them with gold, they can no longer be worn."
"Being able to write becomes a kind of shield, a way of hiding, a way of too instantly transforming pain into honey."
"The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding."