“We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great ex...” — John Updike Quote

We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great extent, to be sociable.

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.

My interest generally is the hidden Americans; the ones who live far away from the headlines.

I think books should have secrets, like people do.

The essential support and encouragement comes from within, arising out of the mad notion that your society needs to know what only you can tell it.

A lot of shows fly under the radar for the first couple seasons and then become successful. It doesn't necessarily have any bearing on the success of the show or how much the network is behind it.

People are realizing that color has no bearing on what's known as brotherhood.

Like civil-rights protesters who sang rousing hymns as they were carried off to jail, Twitterers are bearing witness to what's happening around them, and calling out into the darkness of cyberspace for confirmation. I'm here. You're here, too. We are present.

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.