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Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

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Famous Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

“You people who have survived childhood don't remeber any longer what it was like. You think children are whole, uncomplicated creatures, and if you split them in two with a handy axe there would be all one substance inside, hard candy. But it isn't hard candy so much as a hopeless seething lava of all kinds of things, a turmoil, a mess. And once the child starts thinking about this mess he begins to disintegrate as a child and turns into something else--an adult, an animal.”

PeopleIfsThinkingKindChildrenTwoHardWholeWould BeTurnsAnimalChildhoodLike YouCreaturesAdultsAll KindsMessSubstanceHopelessSplitsSurvivedCandyTurmoilHandyLavaUncomplicatedSeethingHard Candy
Author:Joyce Carol Oates
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“The joyous fulfillment of your sex : the sacred duties of beloved wife, and helpmeet, and mother. In opposition to the vulgar and mercantile hurly-burly of the great world, the idyllic pleasures of the domestic hearth-the which, I firmly believe, make of one small room an everywhere, indeed; and provide us with that small measure of bliss, which is, if we are greatly fortunate, and deserving, Our Lord's promise to us, of the Heaven to come.”

IfsWorldBelieveHomeMotherHeavenSexWomenPleasureRoomsLordWifeDutyPromiseSacredFortunateFulfillmentBelovedBlissOppositionComing HomeVulgarOur LordJoyousDeservingIdyllicSmall RoomsBeloved Wife
Author:Joyce Carol Oates
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“Adriana loved even the rank animal smell of the man's body, her sweat-slicked breasts and belly flattened beneath him, and her arms and legs clutching him as a drowning woman might clutch another person to save her life. Don't don't don't don't leave me. DON'T LEAVE ME. As in animal copulation the frenzy is to be locked together not out of sentiment or choice but physical compulsion. As if bolts of electric current ran through both their bodies and would only release them from each other when it ceased.”

IfsMenPersonsBodyMightTogetherChoicesSexAnimalArmsCurrentsLegsSmellReleaseRanBreastsSentimentsSweatLockedElectricBellyLeaving MeDrowningCompulsionBoltsFrenzyClutchArms And LegsHim And HerElectric CurrentDon't Leave Me
Author:Joyce Carol Oates
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“Blood transforms the warm bath water and, in it, I see weakly that this was a mistake. The razor's cut is not deep, nevertheless the blood rushes out happily in the warm water as if kin to it, the same tender substance. Rising a new person transformed with an icy sense of error I go to the sink and turn on cold water which is not friendly to blood. The cut is deeper than imagined.”

IfsPersonsTurnsWaterMistakeCuttingBloodColdSuicideErrorsDeeperWarmSubstanceRisingFriendlyTransformedNeverthelessBathsTurn-onRazorsIcySelf HarmCold WaterNot Friends
Author:Joyce Carol Oates
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