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
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.
In practice
In an essay about the importance of childhood in shaping one's creative voice.
If you have the guts to be yourself, other people'll pay your price.
Dost 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.
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.
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.
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.
To guarantee the individual maximum freedom within a social frame of minimal laws ensures - if not happiness - its hopeful pursuit.
Your voice is not your instrument. Your voice is the character that you build, your innermost feelings, the things that you want to say, and your instrument is the vehicle that you use to carry the message.
Writing, for me, was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.
Every artist, every scientist, every writer must decide now where he stands. The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative.
Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul.
I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good.
When the target audience is American teenage kids, you can have problems. My generation prized really fine acting and writing. Sometimes you have to go back to the basic principles which underpin great visual comedy.
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