Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

Primarily, 'Black Girl/White Girl' is the story of two very different, yet somehow 'fated' girls; for Genna, her 'friendship' with Minette is the most haunting of her life, though it is one-sided and ends in tragedy.

As a teacher at Princeton, I'm surrounded by people who work hard so I just make good use of my time. And I don't really think of it as work - writing a novel, in one sense, is a problem-solving exercise.

I should say, one of the things about being a widow or a widower, you really, really need a sense of humor, because everything's going to fall apart.

In love there are two things - bodies and words.

To write a novel is to embark on a quest that is very romantic. People have visions, and the next step is to execute them. That's a very romantic project. Like Edvard Munch's strange dreamlike canvases where people are stylized, like 'The Scream.' Munch must have had that vision in a dream, he never saw it.

My theory is that literature is essential to society in the way that dreams are essential to our lives. We can't live without dreaming - as we can't live without sleep. We are 'conscious' beings for only a limited period of time, then we sink back into sleep - the 'unconscious.' It is nourishing, in ways we can't fully understand.

The relationship between parents and children, but especially between mothers and daughters, is tremendously powerful, scarcely to be comprehended in any rational way.

Obviously the imagination is fueled by emotions be... -Joyce Carol Oates

Obviously the imagination is fueled by emotions beyond the control of the conscious mind.

I was brought up to be sympathetic toward others.

Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someo... -Joyce Carol Oates

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

Boxing has become America's tragic theater.

Discovering the context

Boxing is metaphorically referred to as a tragic theater, suggesting that the sport has taken on a dramatic and often unfortunate nature.

The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.

Discovering the context

Identifying a cynical perspective that considering luck or chance as a defining factor or explanatory force in life represents a particularly negative or pessimistic worldview, highlighting a skeptical or dismissive attitude towards relying on luck.

I think it's very important for writers and artists generally to be witnesses to the world, and to be transparent. To let other people speak... to travel... to experience the world. And memorialize it.

If food is poetry, is not poetry also food?

Discovering the context

This quote presents a metaphorical analogy between food and poetry, implying that poetry can nourish and satisfy the human spirit or intellect in a manner similar to how food nourishes the body.

Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

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