Maria Popova has compiled a number of quotes for an article on “John Updike on Writing and Death,” which was published online at Brain Pickings, much of it drawn from Updike’s memoir, Self-Consciousness. There are some interesting juxtapositions and conclusions here—like for Updike, “work—especially a writer’s work—serves the same purpose as religion (which, as Mark Twain famously grumbled, is chiefly an anchor of human ego.”