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
If they would, for Example, praise the Beauty of a Woman, or any other Animal, they describe it by Rhombs, Circles, Parallelograms, Ellipses, and other geometrical terms.
Jonathan SwiftRead
Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances, and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.
Dave BrubeckRead
Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression.
Georgia O'KeeffeRead
Do not feel safe. The poet remembers._x000D_ You can kill one, but another is born._x000D_ The words are written down, the deed, the date.
Czeslaw MiloszRead
Few occupations pass the solitary hours more fruitfully than the playing of a musical instrument.
Stephen HoughRead
Time broadens the scope of verses and I know of some which, like music, are everything for all men.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead