If you have the guts to be yourself, other people'll pay your price.
John UpdikeRead
Memories, impressions and emotions from the first 20 years on earth are most writers' main material; little that comes afterward is quite so rich and resonant.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The early experiences in life significantly shape a writer's creative material.
John Updike emphasizes the idea that the formative years of a writer's life, especially the first two decades, provide a wealth of vivid memories, impressions, and emotions that are more compelling than experiences encountered later. These early experiences serve as the foundation of their artistic expression and creativity, suggesting that the richness of youth is unparalleled in its influence on a writer's work.
Themes
MemoriesImpressionsEmotionsWritingCreativityYouthExperience
In practice
Example use cases
In an essay about the importance of childhood in shaping one's creative voice.
More from John Updike
All quotes βDost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of. _x000D_ _x000D_ Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.
John UpdikeRead
Museums and bookstores should feel, I think, like vacant lots - places where the demands on us are our own demands, where the spirit can find exercise in unsupervised play.
John UpdikeRead
But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.
John UpdikeRead
The reader knows the writer better than he knows himself; but the writer's physical presence is light from a star that has moved on.
John UpdikeRead
To guarantee the individual maximum freedom within a social frame of minimal laws ensures - if not happiness - its hopeful pursuit.
John UpdikeRead
Similar quotes
There are two sighs of relief every night in the life of an opera manager. The first comes when the curtain goes up The second sigh of relief comes when the final curtain goes down without any disaster, and one realizes, gratefully, that the miracle has happened again.
Rudolf BingRead
I believe that architecture is fundamentally a public space where people can gather and communicate, think about the history, think about the lives of human beings, or the world.
Tadao AndoRead
I never want to make the kind of film whose impact ends when the audience leaves the cinema.
Richard AttenboroughRead
I think, with age, you learn that it comes in bursts and you've got no control over it. I'm not one of those people who says, 'I've got to write a song every day.' I just store up ideas, and really I have to wait until it finds me; I know when I'm ready to write. It used to frustrate me, but it doesn't any more. It's just how it is.
Paul WellerRead
When I first heard the minstrel banjo - I played a gourd first - I almost lost my mind. I was like, Oh, my god. And then I went to Africa, to the Gambia, and studied the akonting, which is an ancestor of the banjo, and just that connection to me was just immense.
Rhiannon GiddensRead
Swing is extreme coordination. It's a maintaining balance, equilibrium. It's about executing very difficult rhythms with a panache and a feeling in the context of very strict time. So, everything about the swing is about some guideline and some grid and the elegant way that you negotiate your way through that grid.
Wynton MarsalisRead