“Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being “somebody,” to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation. One can either see or be seen.”

— John Updike

Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 6

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Do you have more details about the quote "Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being “somebody,” to be watched and listened to…" by John Updike?

John Updike 240

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

John Updike quote: “Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being “somebody,” to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation. One can either see or be seen.”

Charles Sheffield book Proteus In The Underworld

Source: Behrooz Wolf (aka The Proteus Trilogy), Proteus In The Underworld (1995), Chapter 2 (p. 11)

“Ritual is intimately connected with the mask, either in the wearing that hides the true face, or in the adoption of a public face.”

Subhash Kak (1947) Indian computer scientist

The Wishing Tree (2015)

“We're at a time when we are being presented with undeniable changes in the global climate and fundamental issues that affect every single one of us, and it's the time we're listening to the most hokey shite on the radio and watching vacuous bullshit celebrities being vacuous bullshit celebrities and desperately trying to forget about everything. Which is fine, you know, but personally speaking, I can't do that.”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

source http://web.archive.org/web/20031208173545/http://www.icyeyes.com.br/interp.htm

“We can see nothing face to face; our utmost seeing is but a fumbling of blind finger-ends in an overcrowded pocket.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)

“Strangers who have seen Shaw face to face are wont to report their surprise at his gentleness and consideration, his willingness to listen and his complete lack of pose.”

Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) Historian

Source: Bernard Shaw in Twilight (1943), II

“No one conceals something in his heart, but Allah causes it to be seen on his face or in a slip of the tongue.”

Uthman (574–656) Companion of Muhammad and third Rashidun Caliph

Farai'd al-Kalam li'l-Khulafa' al-Kiram, p. 269

“An average human looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odour or fragrance, and talks without thinking.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

“Maybe my face is edgy, but that's because it's the face of somebody who's seen life.”

Taryn Manning (1978) American actor, musician and fashion designer

Interview, Pop-Rock Candy Mountain (2008-06-11)

“A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke [of the axe] he is writing his signature on the face of the land.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“November: Axe-in-Hand”, p. 68.
Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "November: Axe-in-Hand," "November: A Mighty Fortress," and "December: Pines above the Snow"
Context: I have read many definitions of what is a conservationist, and written not a few myself, but I suspect that the best one is written not with a pen, but with an axe. It is a matter of what a man thinks about while chopping, or while deciding what to chop. A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of his land.

“I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man that you really want to hear about his business, the look that comes over his face is something to see.”

Walker Percy book The Moviegoer

Source: The Moviegoer (1961)

“Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being “somebody,” to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation. One can either see or be seen.”

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