The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living any... - John Updike
"The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding."
"The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding."
"Professionalism in art has this difficulty: To be professional is to be dependable, to be dependable is to be predictable, and predictability is esthetically boring - an anti-virtue in a field where we hope to be astonished and startled and at some deep level refreshed."
"Being able to write becomes a kind of shield, a way of hiding, a way of too instantly transforming pain into honey."
"Professionalism in art has this difficulty: To be professional is to be dependable, to be dependable is to be predictable, and predictability is esthetically boring - an anti-virtue in a field where we hope to be astonished and startled and at some deep level refreshed."
"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."
"Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life."