Quotessence
Home / Authors / Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllWritingIfsPeopleThinkingArtKnowsNovelMightWayBook

Famous Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

“Whoever's reading this, if anyone is reading it: does it matter that our old selves are lost to us as surely as the past is lost, or is it enough to know yes we lived then, and we are living now, and the connection must be there? Like a river hundreds of miles long exists both at its source and at its mouth, simultaneously?”

IfsKnowsLongDoeSelfMatterEnoughPastReadingLostSourceMouthsRiversConnectionsMilesDoes It MatterOld Self
Book:Foxfire: confessions of a girl gang
Create image

“For the first time driving that day I could feel the motion of the Earth. The Earth rushing through the emptiness of space. Spinning on its axis but they say you don't feel it, you can't experience it. But to feel it is to be scared and happy at once and to know that nothing matters but that you do what you want to do and what you do you are. And I knew I was moving into the future. There is not PAST anybody can get to, to alter things or ever to know what those things were but there is definitely a future, we are already in it.”

KnowsWantFeelsFirstsMatterEarthPastMovingSpaceFirst TimeScaredWhat You WantDrivingEmptinessSpinningRushingAxesNothing Matters
Author:Joyce Carol Oates
Create image

“I'm drawn to write about upstate New York in the way in which a dreamer might have recurring dreams. My childhood and girlhood were spent in upstate New York, in the country north of Buffalo and West of Rochester. So this part of New York state is very familiar to me and, with its economic difficulties, has become emblematic of much of American life.”

WayWritingCountryStatesDreamMightEconomicChildhoodNew YorkDifficultyWestFamiliarDreamerAmerican LifeBuffaloRecurringGirlhoodRochesterNew York StateUpstate New YorkRecurring Dreams
Author:Joyce Carol Oates
Create image

“The 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.”

IfsHumansSeemsMightWrittenRegretDiscoveryLettersObviousSellingGenerosityInevitableCherishRecklessRetrospect
Author:Joyce Carol Oates
Create image

“When writing goes painfully, when it’s hideously difficult, and one feels real despair (ah, the despair, silly as it is, is real!)–then naturally one ought to continue with the work; it would be cowardly to retreat. But when writing goes smoothly–why then one certainly should keep on working, since it would be stupid to stop. Consequently one is always writing or should be writing.”

FeelsShouldWritingRealWould BeDifficultStupidOughtDespairSillyWorking ItRetreatCowardly
Author:Joyce Carol Oates
Create image

“I do what I want to do. It was a brash statement of(her)girlhood. Now she was an adult, the boast seemed quaint. For rarely do you know what you want. Even after you've done it you can't say clearly if that was what you'd wanted or just something that happened to you, like weather.”

IfsKnowsWantDoneWantedHappenedAdultsWhat You WantStatementsWeatherDo You KnowBoastQuaintGirlhoodBrash
Book:I Am No One You Know: And Other Stories
Create image