If you have the guts to be yourself, other people'll pay your price.
John UpdikeRead
But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of his verse, the poet walks gagged through his own biography.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that a poet's true essence and thoughts are often constrained and cannot be fully expressed through their biography.
John Updike reflects on the limitations of a poet's biography, indicating that much of their inner life and creative spirit remains hidden behind the constraints of biography. While a few selected phrases and lines may convey some part of their artistic identity, the fullness of their experience and creativity cannot be fully captured or understood through mere biographical details.
In practice
In a literary discussion about the limitations of biographical interpretations of artists.
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.
As ballerinas, we don't use our voices. Our voice is the body and the movement quality.
I try to write something that would interest anybody and keep them turning the page. You must have a plot and good storyline.
Keep it in tune with the times, but don't write with the specific purpose of trying to create a hit. If you're doing it strictly to make money, you're crazy. There are easier ways to make money.
I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; - poetry = the best words in the best order.
I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.
I write essays to clear my mind. I write fiction to open my heart.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.