The artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and that he does it without destroying something else. A kind of refutation of t… - John Updike

The artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and he does it without destroying something else.

"Driving is boring," Rabbit pontificates, "but it's what we do. Most of American life is driving somewhere and then driving back wondering why the hell you went."

This age needs rather men like Shakespeare, or Milton, or Pope; men who are filled with the strength of their cultures and do not transcend the limits of their age, but, working within the times, bring what is peculiar to the moment to glory. We need great artists who are willing to accept restrictions, and who love their environments with such vitality that they can produce an epic out of the Protestant ethic.... Whatever the many failings of my work, let it stand as a manifesto of my love for the time in which I was born.

Nature may be defined as that which exists without guilt.