“Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.”
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Famous Joyce Carol Oates Quotes
Source: On Boxing
“The regional voice is the universal voice.”
Source: The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art
“Art is the highest expression of the human spirit.”
Source: The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art
Source: Scenes from American life: contemporary short fiction
“On the elusive gift of blending austerity of craft with elasticity of allure.”
“"Because there has been no one to stop me" has been one of the principles of my life.”
“It's where we go, and what we do when we get there, that tells us who we really are.”
“Food doesn't exist, but can only be invented. And reinvented.”
“Novels begin, not on the page, but in meditation and day-dreaming - In thinking, not writing.”
“It must happen to everyone. The last time you make love, you can't know it will be the last.”
“Literature, art, like civilization itself, are only accidents.”
Source: Expensive People
“I have beliefs, of course, like everyone-but I don't always believe in them.”
Source: Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates
“Technique holds a reader from sentence to sentence, but only content will stay in his mind.”
Source: We Were the Mulvaneys
Source: The Accursed: A Novel
“The despairing soul is a rebel.”
Source: Where I've Been, and where I'm Going: Essays, Reviews, and Prose
“The novel is the affliction for which only the novel is the cure.”
Source: The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art
“Never be ashamed of your subject, and of your passion for your subject.”
Source: The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art
“The greatest realities are physical and economic, all the subtleties of life come afterward.”
“Yet the fact had no consciousness of itself except through me.”
Source: Heat and other stories
“I used to think getting old was about vanity but actually it's about losing people you love.”
Source: (Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities
Source: (Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities
“Fame's carapace does not allow for easy breathing.”
Source: (Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities
Source: (Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities
Source: (Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities
“Better to be despised, then, than to be ignored; or damned with condescending praise.”
Source: (Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities
“Self-criticism is an art not many are qualified to practice.”
Source: (Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities
“I probably spend 90% of my time revising what I've written.”
“I really love to set things in places that are real to me.”
“Obviously the imagination is fueled by emotions beyond the control of the conscious mind.”