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Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates Books

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Blonde

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On Boxing

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A Fair Maiden

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The Accursed

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Beasts

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Man Crazy

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Blonde: A Novel

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Expensive People

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A Widow's Story

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Contraries

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Jack of Spades

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Missing Mom

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Night-Side

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The Corn Maiden

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Related Quotes

“She was gracious if oddly shy with his friends when they came to visit; she listened eagerly as women spoke to her of their pregnancy and childbirth experiences, of which they were happy to speak, and at length; the Playwright heard his wife tell one of these women that her own mother had once told her she'd loved being pregnant, it's the only time a woman truly feels at home in her body, and in the world - "Is that true?" The Playwright hadn't lingered to hear the answer; he wondered what such a revelation meant, for a man. Are we never at home in our bodies? In the world? Except in the act of sexual intercourse, transmitting our seed to the female?”

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Book:Blonde
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“On the set Norma Jeane was quiet and respectful and watchful and shrewd. Now she'd solved the puzzle of her own role, it fascinated her to see how others had solved, or were struggling with, theirs. For acting is the solving of a succession of puzzles of which no single puzzle can explain the others. For the actor is a succession of selves held together by the promise that in acting all losses can be restored.”

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Book:Blonde
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“In this way unwittingly the Widow-to-Be is assuring her husband’s death—his doom. Even as she believes she is behaving intelligently—“shrewdly” and “reasonably”—she is taking him to a teeming petri dish of lethal bacteria where within a week he will succumb to a virulent staph infection—a “hospital” infection acquired in the course of his treatment for pneumonia. Even as she is fantasizing that he will be home for dinner she is assuring that he will never return home. How unwitting, all Widows-to-Be who imagine that they are doing the right thing, in innocence and ignorance!”

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Book:A Widow's Story
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“The days were brief and attenuated and the season appeared to be fixed - neither summer nor winter, spring nor fall. A thermal haze of inexpressible sweetness, though bearing tiny bits of grit or mica, had eased into the Valley from the industrial region to the north and there were nights when the sun set at the western horizon as if it were sinking through a porous red mass, and there were days when a hard-glaring moon like bone remained fixed in a single position, prominent in the sky. ("Family")”

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Book:American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now
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“I was nineteen years five months old when I fell in love for the first time. This seemed to me a profound, advanced age; never can we anticipate being older than we are, or wiser; if we're exhausted, it's impossible to anticipate being strong; as, in the grip of a dream, we rarely understand that we're dreaming, and will escape by the simplest of methods, opening our eyes.”

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Book:I'll Take You There
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“Parading around like she owns the place." This would be charged of women and girls who exhibited themselves: their bodies. Particularly if their bodies were imperfect in obvious ways– too fat. Appearing in public when they should be ashamed of how they looked or in any case aware of how they looked. Of how unsparing eyes would latch onto them, assessing. Never was such a charge made of men or boys. There appeared to be no masculine equivalent for "making a spectacle, parading around." As, you'd discover, there was no masculine equivalent for "bitch, slut.”

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Author:Joyce Carol Oates
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“She feel these hands tremble, and she could feel Mr. Kidder’s excitement. How eager she was to be gone from this room. Her heart was beating in mild revulsion from the man’s touch, but Katya forced herself to remain still, politely unresisting. In Mr. Kidder’s eyes, which brimmed with moisture, Katya saw such tenderness for her, such desire, or love, she felt that her throat might close, she might begin to cry. Gravely Mr. Kidder lowered his face to hers. Katya held her breath, but he just brushed his lips against her forehead and did not try to kiss her on the mouth.”

Age DifferenceJoyce Carol OatesA Fair Maiden
Book:A Fair Maiden
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“NO KISS FORGOTTEN; it resides in the memory as in the flesh, and so Katya many times felt the press of Marcus Kidder’s warm mouth on hers in the days and especially in the nights following. And her heartbeat quickened in protest: How could you! Kiss him! That old man! Kiss him! Let him put his arms around you ad kiss you and kiss him back! The old man’s mouth and Katya Spivak’s mouth! How could you.”

Age DifferenceJoyce Carol OatesA Fair Maiden
Book:A Fair Maiden
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“She could feel these hands tremble, and she could feel Mr. Kidder’s excitement. How eager she was to be gone from this room. Her heart was beating in mild revulsion from the man’s touch, but Katya forced herself to remain still, politely unresisting. In Mr. Kidder’s eyes, which brimmed with moisture, Katya saw such tenderness for her, such desire, or love, she felt that her throat might close, she might begin to cry. Gravely Mr. Kidder lowered his face to hers. Katya held her breath, but he just brushed his lips against her forehead and did not try to kiss her on the mouth.”

Age DifferenceJoyce Carol OatesA Fair Maiden
Book:A Fair Maiden
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