“Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.”

— John Updike

Hugging the Shore, foreword (1983)

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John Updike 240

American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, an… 1932–2009

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“If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.”

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“O. K., I'm a rock critic. I also write and record music. I write poetry, fiction, straight journalism, unstraight journalism, beatnik drivel, mortifying love letters, death threats to white jazz critics signed "The Mau Maus of East Harlem," and once a year my own obituary (latest entry: "He was promising…").”

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“Every little glimmering pond
Claims the mighty shores beyond;
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Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) English poet

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Heaven for a looking-glass!Every little valley lies
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“Hug the shore.”

Virgil Aeneid

(la) Litus ama.
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book V, Line 163 (tr. Fairclough)

“I think men and women who write poetry or write music or paint are finally responsible for what they do. They are entitled to praise for any success they achieve and they should not complain of just criticism.”

Geoffrey Hill (1932–2016) English poet and professor

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“He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“The mind is like a sea, few are those who dare sail, most stand on the shore and watch. Artist pages.”

Avner Strauss (1954) Israeli musician

A.S.

“It is time to be old,
To take in sail: -
The god of bounds,
Who sets to seas a shore,
Came to me in his fatal rounds,
And said: 'No more!”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Terminus http://www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=l&p=c&a=p&ID=20600&c=323
1860s, May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)

“I do more non-fiction writing. I have two memoirs, another nonfiction book, and I do lots of essays, journalism, poetry, and reporting. But I love the fiction. As you know I have a novel, a short story collection, and two children’s books. It’s more challenging to write fiction, but I’d like to do more of these. I don’t really prefer one over the other.”

Luis J. Rodriguez (1954) pinto poetry, Chicanismo, and Chicano literature

On his writing preferences in “An Interview with Luis J. Rodriguez” https://www.epl.org/an-interview-with-luis-j-rodriguez-2/ (Evanston Public Library; 2011)

“When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction.”

Stephen King book Joyland

Source: Joyland

“Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.”

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