"Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he had to say in his works"
About this Quote
The subtext is both defensive and elegiac. Updike, a novelist who spent decades being interviewed, profiled, and psychoanalyzed in public, is wary of the extra-literary demand that writers provide a running commentary on themselves. The 20th century industrialized that demand: mass media, publishing as marketing, the rise of the author interview, the confessional memoir, and later the festival circuit where writers become performers of their own “meaning.” Readers, trained by newspapers and then television to seek the “real story,” start treating fiction as a coded deposition about the author’s private life or politics.
Why the sentence works is its calm, almost legal phrasing: “generally assumed” and “had said what he had to say” sound like common sense, which makes the implied indictment sharper. It’s a quiet rebuke to a culture that asks for footnotes in human form - and a reminder that art’s power lies in what it can say without the author standing beside it, translating.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Updike, John. (2026, January 18). Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he had to say in his works. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/until-the-20th-century-it-was-generally-assumed-10524/
Chicago Style
Updike, John. "Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he had to say in his works." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/until-the-20th-century-it-was-generally-assumed-10524/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he had to say in his works." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/until-the-20th-century-it-was-generally-assumed-10524/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
