“Our artistic heroes tend to be those self-exercisers, like Picasso, an...” — John Updike Quote

“Our artistic heroes tend to be those self-exercisers, like Picasso, and Nabokov, and Wallace Stevens, who rather defiantly kept playing past dark.”

“We don't really want to think that the artist is only very skilled, that he has merely devoted his life to perfecting a certain set of intelligible skills.”

“I should mention something that nobody ever thinks about, but proofreading takes a lot of time. After you write something, there are these proofs that keep coming, and there's this panicky feeling that 'This is me and I must make it better.'”

“The study of literature threatens to become a kind of paleontology of failure, and criticism a supercilious psychoanalysis of authors.”

“In my first 15 or 20 years of authorship, I was almost never asked to give a speech or an interview. The written work was supposed to speak for itself, and to sell itself, sometimes even without the author's photograph on the back flap.”

“I suppose sequels are inevitable for a writer of a certain age.”

“I'd rather be creative and be artistic and be able to play intricate music that moves and really takes you on a journey.”

“The word 'art' interests me very much. If it comes from Sanskrit, as I've heard, it signifies 'making.' Now everyone makes something, and those who make things on a canvas with a frame, they're called artists. Formerly, they were called craftsmen, a term I prefer. We're all craftsmen, in civilian or military or artistic life.”

“I feel like my Lion Babe look is an embellishment of my everyday look - it's definitely more extravagant and more artistic.”

“I have a lot of weird interests, but everything I do is artistic.”

“Artistic development is a thing of the past, sadly.”

“I've put in as many as 40 weeks a year on stage. It is lonely and restricted, as all artistic life must necessarily be.”