John Updike

Biographile’s This Week in History remembers events of the past, and the icons that set them in motion. If you're stirred by the words below, read more inspiring author quotes.

John Updike, most widely known for his character Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, was a prolific staple of American literature for nearly fifty years. The Rabbit series, beginning with Rabbit, Run in 1960, was really just one small fraction of his body of work. In addition to fiction, he was a regular contributor to The New Yorker, writing frequent art and literary criticism as well as several collections of poetry. All told in his lifetime, Updike published over sixty books winning two Pulitzer Prizes and a slew of other awards in the process.

His prose was distinct and notable for lyrical exposition, small town settings, and a fixation with the little dramas of ordinary day-to-day life. Updike's quiet yet moving portraits spawned a critical schism between readers who connected with the almost languid exploration of minutiae and those who, while recognizing Updike's unmistakable talent, felt his subjects too small, too trivial for the amount of thought he gave them. Updike's response to both the acclaim and criticism is one of his most oft-cited quotations: "My only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me—to give the mundane its beautiful due."

And did he ever. From his fiction to his memoirs, his critical essays to his letters, no writer quite captured the kernels of truths at the foundation of life the way Updike did. To commemorate his birth this week, March 18, 1932, we've pulled together some of his most illuminating quotes that are sure to inspire you to view at least one small piece of your life a little more beautifully.

1. "Halfway isn't all the way, but it's better than no way." (Rabbit Redux, 1969)

2. "Looking foolish does the spirit good." (Self-Consciousness: Memoirs, 1989)

3. "You don’t stop caring, champ....Once you care, you always care. That’s how stupid we are." (Rabbit is Rich, 1981)

4. "Whenever somebody tells me to do something my instinct's always to do the opposite. It's got me into a lot of trouble, but I've had a lot of fun." (Rabbit at Rest, 1990)

5. "The only way to get somewhere, you know, is to figure out where you're going before you go there." (Rabbit Run, 1960)

6. "No act is so private it does not seek applause." (Couples, 1968)

7. "The size of a life is how you feel about it." (Rabbit Remembered, 2000)

8. "When you feel irresistable, you're hard to resist." (Rabbit at Rest, 1990)

9. "Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them." (Self-Consciousness: Memoirs, 1989)

10. "Any decent kind of world, you wouldn't need all these rules." (Rabbit Redux, 1969)