Fiction is nothing less than the subtlest instrument for self-examinat…

John Updike
174 citations
Fiction is nothing less than the subtlest instrument for self-examination and self-display that Mankind has invented yet. ✨ John Updike (2012). Odd Jobs: Essays and Criticism, p.92, Random House
Humanity
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I must go to Nature disarmed of perspective and stretch myself like a large transparent canvas upon her in the hope that, my submission being perfect, the imprint of a beautiful and useful truth woul … ▶
I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody's head. ✨ FaceBook post byJohn Updike from Dec 22, 2013
For male and female alike, the bodies of the other sex are messages signaling what we must do - they are glowing signifiers of our own necessities. ✨ The Female Body. Michigan Quarterly Review, 1990.
A computer and a cat are somewhat alike - they both purr, and like to be stroked, and spend a lot of the day motionless. They also have secrets they don't necessarily share.
What is the past, after all, but a vast sheet of darkness in which a few moments, pricked apparently at random, shine? ✨ John Updike (1996). Pigeon Feathers, and Other Stories, Ballantine Books

Fiction is nothing less than the subtlest instrument for self-examination and self-display that Mankind has invented yet. ✨ John Updike (2012). Odd Jobs: Essays and Criticism, p.92, Random House

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