John Updike : (5) " A number of American colleges are willing to pay a tempting amount to pinch and poke an author for a day or two. " - John Updike " Most of American life consists of driving somewhere and then returning home, wondering why the hell you went. " - John Updike " I was an only child. I needed an alternative to family life – to real life, you could almost say – and cartoons, pictures in a book, the animated movies, seemed to provide it. " - John Updike " To be a human being is to be in a state of tension between your appetites and your dreams, and the social realities around you and your obligations to your fellow man. " - John Updike " In my first 15 or 20 years of authorship, I was almost never asked to give a speech or an interview. The written work was supposed to speak for itself, and to sell itself, sometimes even without the author’s photograph on the back flap. " - John Updike