“Fiction is burdened for me with a sense of duty.” — John Updike Quote

Fiction is burdened for me with a sense of duty.

Reagan has turned America into a tax haven.

I find in my own writing that only fiction - and rarely, a poem - fully tests me to the kind of limits of what I know and what I feel.

By the mid-17th century, telescopes had improved enough to make visible the seasonally growing and shrinking polar ice caps on Mars, and features such as Syrtis Major, a dark patch thought to be a shallow sea.

My attempt has been really to, beyond making a record of contemporary life, which is what you inevitably do, is trying to make beautiful books - books that are in some way beautiful, that are models of how to use the language, models of honest feeling, models of care.

But, sir, I shall take the path of duty and shall not swerve from it.

A writer should care about one thing - the language. To write well - that is his duty. That is his only duty.

May be is very well, but Must is the master. It is my duty to show justice without recompense.

I feel a duty to write because I can write songs.

England expects that every man will do his duty.