Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

In love there are two things - bodies and words.
Joyce Carol Oates

Love, Words, Two

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

Someone, Night, Light

Boxing has become America's tragic theater.
Joyce Carol Oates

Sports, America, Become

Life and people are complex. A writer as an artist doesn't have the personality of a politician. We don't see the world that simply.
Joyce Carol Oates

Life, Artist, Writer

Our house is made of glass... and our lives are made of glass; and there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves.
Joyce Carol Oates

Nothing, Made, Lives

As a child. I grew up on a small farm, so I did a lot of drawings of animals, chickens and people. At the bottom of every page, I'd put a strange scribble. I was emulating adult handwriting, though I didn't actually know how to write.
Joyce Carol Oates

Small, Strange, Put

Boxing is about being hit rather more than it is about hitting, just as it is about feeling pain, if not devastating psychological paralysis, more than it is about winning.
Joyce Carol Oates

Pain, Feeling, Winning

If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space.
Joyce Carol Oates

Car, Yourself, Writing

Nothing is accidental in the universe - this is one of my Laws of Physics - except the entire universe itself, which is Pure Accident, pure divinity.
Joyce Carol Oates

Nothing, Universe, Physics

Anyone who teaches knows that you don't really experience a text until you've taught it, in loving detail, with an intelligent and responsive class.
Joyce Carol Oates

Experience, Until, Anyone

Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.
Joyce Carol Oates

Passion, Authority, Inventions

A lot of widows feel that they have betrayed their spouse by continuing to live. It's deranged thinking. I know that, but that doesn't stop you feeling it.
Joyce Carol Oates

Live, Feeling, Thinking

After my parents passed away - in 2000 and 2003 - I felt I could take the time to think about the past and imagine what it would have been like to be my grandmother.
Joyce Carol Oates

Time, Past, Parents

Before you can write a novel you have to have a number of ideas that come together. One idea is not enough.
Joyce Carol Oates

Together, Enough, Before

Except that awards are competitive, which is a negative thing, they are wonderful for singling out deserving individuals and bringing their work to the attention of many potential readers who might otherwise have been totally unaware of them.
Joyce Carol Oates

Work, Negative, Wonderful

The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
Joyce Carol Oates

Luck, Belief, Worst

When people say there is too much violence in my books, what they are saying is there is too much reality in life.
Joyce Carol Oates

Life, Saying, Reality

A good, sympathetic review is always a wonderful surprise.
Joyce Carol Oates

Good, Wonderful, Surprise

A typical biography relying upon individuals' notorious memories and the anecdotes they've invented contains a high degree of fiction, yet is considered 'nonfiction.'
Joyce Carol Oates

High, Memories, Fiction

A writer can't subtract or excise any of his/her past because doing so would erase the work produced during that time.
Joyce Carol Oates

Work, Time, Past

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.
Joyce Carol Oates

Work, Time, Good

Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost.
Joyce Carol Oates

Religion, Lost, Boxing

Criticism is, for me, like essay writing, a wonderful way of relaxation; it doesn't require a heightened and mediated voice, like prose fiction, but rather a calm, rational, even conversational voice.
Joyce Carol Oates

Writing, Wonderful, Rather

Honorary degrees and lifetime achievement awards are very encouraging. I know that it might sound strange that a writer who has published many books still needs encouragement, but this is true.
Joyce Carol Oates

True, Strange, Might

I can't say I was a very successful sorority girl.
Joyce Carol Oates

Successful, Girl

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Biography

Nationality: American

Born: June 16, 1938

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