Best quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

GriefI would suggest the widow do things the husband used to do, so he seems to be there with you. You will feel like just going to bed. It's so wonderful, going to bed.

SportsBoxingJoyce Carol OatesThe third man in the ring makes boxing possible.

SportConnectionIntimacyIn no other sport is the connection between performer and observer so intimate, so frequently painful, so unresolved

Writing ProcessThe first sentence cant be written until the final sentence is written.

Joyce Carol OatesSometimes I read reviews, and without exception I will read critical essays that are sent to me. The critical essays are interesting on their own terms.

Gender RolesSocietal ExpectationsMotherhoodAnd that's the insult of it, how always it comes back to a woman being a "good" mother in the world's eyes or a "bad" mother, how everything in a woman's life is funneled through her body between her legs.

PunishmentFor madness must be punished in a world in which mere sanity is prized. The revenge of the ordinary upon the gifted.

BeliefLuckThe worst cynicism: a belief in luck.

СпогадиWritingVoiceI rarely write in my own voice except in book reviews and memoirs; otherwise, I am writing in mediated voices, modulated in terms of the characters whom the voices express.

RevisionI am inclined to think that as I grow older I will come to be infatuated with the art of revision, and there may come a time when I will dread giving up a novel at all.

ArtMoralityLiteratureThe greatest works of literature seem to embody both "art" and "morality".

ЗлоAttractionAnd this is the forbidden truth, the unspeakable taboo - that evil is not always repellent but frequently attractive; that it has the power to make of us not simply victims, as nature and accident do, but active accomplices.

UnderstandingEmpathyPerspectiveReadingLiteratureReading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

Personal DevelopmentGrowthAuthenticityIdentitySelf-ExpressionI never change, I simply become more myself.

BeautyAppreciationObservationOptimismHow lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.

Personal GrowthIdentitySelf-DiscoverySelf-ReflectionActionsIt's where we go, and what we do when we get there, that tells us who we really are.

AttitudePositivityHopePessimismKeep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

FreedomPersonal PreferenceJoyReadingRead widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

TimeThe strangeness of Time. Not in its passing, which can seem infinite, like a tunnel whose end you can't see, whose beginning you've forgotten, but in the sudden realization that something finite, has passed, and is irretrievable.

PerceptionTruthRealityPerspectiveThere is nothing "ordinary" about reality.

UncertaintyIntuitionThere is an hour, a minute - you will remember it forever - when you know instinctively on the basis of the most inconsequential evidence, that something is wrong. You don't know - can't know - that it is the first of a series of "wrongful" events that will culminate in the utter devastation of your life as you have known it.

ArtExpressionJoyce Carol OatesArt is the highest expression of the human spirit.

CreativityInspirationStorytellingImaginationWriting ProcessNovels begin, not on the page, but in meditation and day-dreaming - In thinking, not writing.

EditingWriting ProcessPeople might be surprised to know how much I throw away. For every page I publish, I throw 10 pages away.

LonelinessGodDangerLoneliness is dangerous ... because if aloneness does not lead to God, it leads to the devil. It leads to the self.

ChallengesPerseveranceFrustrationWriting ProcessAnalogyGetting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor.

ДоляLifeUncertaintyMuch in our lives is chance.

BeautyPerceptionIllusionBeauty is a question of optics. All sight is illusion.

SoulWritingTransformationExhaustionI have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card…and somehow the activity of writing changes everything.

Personal GrowthSelf-ImprovementSelf-ReflectionBe your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!

LifeRelationshipsDestinyPurposeSee, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be

ChallengeThe challenge is to resist circumstances. Any idiot can be happy in a happy place, but moral courage is required to be happy in a hellhole.

TimePastEternityLightThe heavenly light you admire is fossil-light, it's the unfathomably distant past you gaze into, stars long extinct

PassionHuman NatureAuthoritySymbolismHomo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.

ArtTragedyFormJoyce Carol OatesTragedy is the highest form of art.

SolitudeWritingLonelinessPrivacyWriting is a solitary occupation, and one of its hazards is loneliness. But an advantage of loneliness is privacy, autonomy and freedom.

DeathExistenceThere was a Greek philosopher who taught that, of all things, not to have been born is the sweetest state. But I believe sleep is the sweetest state. You're dead, yet alive. There's no sensation so exquisite.

SilenceDeathLanguageCommunicationThe use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence.

LoveRelationshipsSelf-WorthThe worst thing: to give yourself away in exchange for not enough love.

StruggleThe brain is a muscle of busy hills, the struggle of unthought things with things eternally thought.

MindVisionPerceptionImaginationPerspectiveNot what the mind sees, but what the mind imagines the eye must see.

DeathExistenceAfterlifeWhat does it mean to be born? After we die, will it be the same thing as it was before we were born? Or a different kind of nothingness? Because there might be knowledge then. Memory.

DarknessNight comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.

SurvivalRemembranceGuiltIt's a taboo subject. How the dead are betrayed by the living. We who are living--we who have survived--understand that our guilt is what links us to the dead. At all times we can hear them calling to us, a growing incredulity in their voices, You will not forget me -- will you? How can you forget me? I have no one but you.

Human BehaviorEvil isn't a cosmological riddle, only just selfish human behavior.

GenerosityRegretThe act of sending a letter is an act of generosity, even if, in retrospect, it might seem reckless. Why regret one's generosity? Why regret one's impulsiveness, one's misjudgment of others? The inevitable discovery that someone is selling letters you'd written in trust is simply to discover an obvious human truth: there are those who don't cherish us as we'd cherished them, and had wished to be cherished by them.

The regional voice is the universal voice.

ProductivityWriting ProcessProductivity is a relative matter. And it's really insignificant: What is ultimately important is a writer's strongest books. It may be the case that we all must write many books in order to achieve a few lasting ones - just as a young writer or poet might have to write hundreds of poems before writing his first significant one.

SpeedTimeImpactLightNear the point of impact, time acelerates to the speed of light.

WritingPotentialStorytellingImaginationMy writing is full of lives I might have led.

DirectionStressAnxietyAny kind of creative activity is likely to be stressful. The more anxiety, the more you feel that you are headed in the right direction. Easiness, relaxation, comfort - these are not conditions that usually accompany serious work.

PerceptionKnowledgeTruthSelf-AwarenessMemoryEven if I seemed to remember, I could not know. For just to remember something is not to know if it really happened. That is a primary fact of the inner life, the most difficult fact with which we must live.

FaithDoubtSkepticismBeliefsI have beliefs, of course, like everyone-but I don't always believe in them.

ArtArt is about freedom of expression, and should not be molded to fit any propaganda or lofty ideal.

HappinessImaginationNourishmentRunning! If there's any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can't think of what it might be.

Self-AssessmentIdealismUltimately, we measure ourselves against our own ideas of idealism and perfection, and we don't always come very close to them.

LoveForgivenessMaybe, love is always forgiveness, to a degree.

WritingNovelsCreative ProcessRewritingWhen I complete a novel I set it aside, and begin work on short stories, and eventually another long work. When I complete that novel I return to the earlier novel and rewrite much of it. In the meantime the second novel lies in a desk drawer.

LoveFamilyWritingFriendsPrioritiesAll that matters in life is forging deep ties of love and family and friends. Writing and reading come later.

LiberationForgettingRealizationI had forgotten that time wasn't fixed like concrete but in fact was fluid as sand, or water. I had forgotten that even misery can end.

CharacterNovelsStoriesNovels usually evolve out of 'character.' Characters generate stories, and the shape of a novel is entirely imagined but should have an aesthetic coherence.

PersistenceWriters and artists never pay attention to advice given by their elders, quite rightly. The only worthwhile advice is the most general: Keep trying, don't give up, don't be discouraged, don't pay attention to detractors. Everyone knows this.

Personal GrowthIdentitySelf-DiscoverySelf-ReflectionIs there any mystery like who you finally turn out to be.

CreativityWritingTime ManagementRevisionI probably spend 90% of my time revising what I've written.

RelationshipsMortalityUncertaintyExperiencesIt must happen to everyone. The last time you make love, you can't know it will be the last.

MoneyPerspectiveWealthThe only people who claim that money is not important are people who have enough money so that they are relieved of the ugly burden of thinking about it.

Look at the world and see what's there. It's very beautiful. It's a very exciting but in some ways treacherous world, and all this goes into the writing.

HappinessIdentitySelf-WorthHopeI was trying not to be happy, hopeful. I did not believe I deserved happiness or even hope, if you knew my soul.

Her wish to die was as pervasive as a dial tone: you lift the receiver, it's always there.

LoveLossIntimacyMemoryLongingIf I try to summon back his face, the sound of his voice, and the sensation in my stomach like a key turning in a lock when he touched me, I lose everything.

SocietySociety is the picnic certain individuals leave early, the party they fail to enjoy, the musical comedy they find not worth the price of admission.

Overcoming ObstaclesFrom Mother you will inherit the belief that you can journey to your fate, there's a place to be located on a map that's destiny. If only you can get there. If it isn't too late. If no one stops you.

ArtCompromiseJoyce Carol OatesCan compromise be an art? Yes--but a minor art.

DisappointmentIf a book I've committed myself to review turns out to be 'disappointing' I make an effort to present it objectively to the reader, including a good number of excerpts from the text, so that the reader might form his or her own opinion independent of my own.

ArtSelf-CriticismPracticeSelf-criticism is an art not many are qualified to practice.