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Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

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Joyce Carol Oates is a renowned American author born on June 16, 1938. Her works span various literary forms such as novels, poetry, and drama, known for her unique narrative techniques and profound thematic explorations.

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Famous Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

“Writing is a solitary occupation, and one of its hazards is loneliness. But an advantage of loneliness is privacy, autonomy and freedom.”

Writing Loneliness Advantage Privacy Occupation Solitary Autonomy Hazards

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“It's very hard to be an experimental woman writer. If I had been writing under a pseudonym, just initials, I might have a different reputation - but, then I couldn't be myself either.”

Ifs Writing Different Hard Might Reputation Initials Pseudonyms

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“When poets - write about food it is usually celebratory. Food as the thing-in-itself, but also the thoughtful preparation of meals, the serving of meals, meals communally shared: a sense of the sacred in the profane.”

Writing Poet Sacred Preparation Meals Thoughtful Serving Profane

Book:(Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities

Source: (Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities

“the art of reading hardly differs from the art of writing, in that its most intense pleasures and pains must remains private, and cannot be communicated to others.”

Writing Art Pain Reading Pleasure Remains Intense Pain And Pleasure Art Of Writing

Book:The profane art: essays and reviews

Source: The profane art: essays and reviews

“while there are 'women writers' there are not, and have never been, 'men writers.' This is an empty category, a class without specimens; for the noun 'writer' - the very verb 'writing' - always implies masculinity.”

Men Writing Class Empty Sexism Categories Masculinity Verbs Nouns

Book:(Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities

Source: (Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities

“Writing is the most solitary of arts.”

Writing Art Solitary

Book:The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art

Source: The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art

“When I'm really involved or getting towards the end of a novel, I can write for up to ten hours a day. At those times, it's as though I'm writing a letter to someone I'm desperately in love with.”

Writing I Can Ends Hours Novel Involved Ten Letters

Book:Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates

Source: Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates

“My writing is full of lives I might have led.”

Book:Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates

Source: Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates

“Any writer who has difficulty in writing is probably not onto his true subject, but wasting time with false, petty goals; as soon as you connect with your true subject you will write.”

Writing Goal Subjects Difficulty Wasting Time Petty

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“Much of my writing is energized by unresolved memories - something like ghosts in the psychological sense.”

Writing Memories Ghost Psychological

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“The appeal of writing is primarily the investigation of mystery.”

Writing Mystery Appeals Investigation

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“Of course, both [Oscar] Wilde & [Vladimir] Nabokov believe in many things, and these things emerge in their writing clearly - for Wilde, the folly of humankind and the (romantic) grandeur of the heroic, lone individual (not unlike Wilde himself); for Nabokov, the possibility of a kind of transcendence through a great, prevailing, superior sort of love (especially in Ada, the most self-congratulatory of novels.)”

Writing Believe Kind Self Courses Individual Novel Possibility Superiors Folly Heroic Humankind Oscars Transcendence Grandeur Prevailing Lone Wilde Ada

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“It would be difficult for a writer of realism to avoid suggesting a political/moral perspective in his or her fiction. "Politics" per se is absent from my writing but there is usually a moral (if ironic) compass.”

Ifs Writing Would Be Political Difficult Fiction Moral Perspective Ironic Realism Compass Absent Suggesting

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“"Politics" per se is absent from my writing but there is usually a moral (if ironic) compass.”

Ifs Writing Moral Ironic Compass Absent

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“My first love was reading, which inspired me to write.”

Writing Firsts Reading Inspired First Love

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“Reading yields a wish to write, I think, except if the reading is dull and uninspiring.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Reading Wish Dull Yield Uninspiring

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“It's impossible to read a distinctive stylist like Faulkner, Joyce, Kafka, Mann, Woolf, James - and many more - without wanting to write, however entirely different one's writing will be.”

Writing Different Impossible Distinctive Stylist Joyce Woolf

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“Writing allows for fictitious voices - the voices of persons unlike myself - that might otherwise be muted.”

Writing Persons Might Voice

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“I did not consider that I would lead a literary life. I'd thought initially, as a young girl, that I would be a teacher, since I so admired many of my teachers. And though I loved writing, I did not ever think of myself as a writer.”

Thinking Writing Would Be Young Girl Teacher

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“One of the qualities of writing that is not much stressed is its problem-solving aspect, having to do with the presentation of material: how to structure it, what sort of sentences (direct, elliptical, simple or compound, syntactically elaborate), what tone (in art, "tone" is everything), pacing. Paragraphing is a way of dramatization, as the look of a poem on a page is dramatic; where to break lines, where to end sentences.”

Way Writing Looks Art Ends Problem Lines Simple Quality Break Materials Pages Aspect Direct Structure Sentences Dramatic Tone Problem Solving Presentation Stressed Compounds Pacing

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“Though I revise constantly as I write, I will usually revise much of the work again after I've reached the ending.”

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“I rarely write in my own voice except in book reviews and memoirs; otherwise, I am writing in mediated voices, modulated in terms of the characters whom the voices express.”

Writing Book Character Voice Term My Own Memoir Reviews Book Review

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“By the way of connecting with subject, with theme, I was able to find a kind of lifeline. Writing's like a lifeline. You have to get the right way in. Otherwise the material just lies there, and you can't do anything with it.”

Way Writing Kind Able Lying Subjects Materials Theme Right Way Connecting Lifelines

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“When one crosses over from an activity, or the verb, of writing or doing, and becomes a noun, like "a writer" I think that is an act of supreme self-consciousness that I've never, in effect, made. I write, but I don't like to think of myself as a writer. I think it's somewhat self-aggrandizing and pretentious. Now, I am a teacher.”

Thinking Writing Made Self Consciousness Teacher Effects Activity Crosses Supreme Verbs Pretentious Self Consciousness Nouns

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“It's hard to say how we compare to other people. We each inhabit our own personalities. I have often felt that I'm a very neutral being and that I have almost no personality. I'm drawn to writing partly because I'm fascinated by the mimetic process.”

People Writing Hard Felt Process Personality Compare Fascinated

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“Look at the world and see what's there. It's very beautiful. It's a very exciting but in some ways treacherous world, and all this goes into the writing.”

World Way Writing Looks Beautiful Exciting Very Beautiful Treacherous

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“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.”

Ifs Writing Stills Matter Space Behinds Silence Car Wall Walking No Matter What Driving Housework

Book:Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates

Source: Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates

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

Writing Ideas Enough Together Numbers Novel

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“You need so much energy and encouragement to write that if someone says something negative, some of that energy goes.”

Ifs Needs Writing Energy Negative Encouragement

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“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.”

People Knows Writing Children Animal Know How Strange Grew Grew Up Pages Adults Bottom Drawing Chickens Farms Handwriting Scribbles

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“All that matters in life is forging deep ties of love and family and friends. Writing and reading come later.”

Writing Matter Life Is Reading Ties Family And Friends Writing And Reading Forging Love And Family Ties Of Love

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“I was writing novels in high school and apprenticed myself in a way both to Faulkner and to Hemingway.”

Way Writing School Novel High School

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“If food is poetry, is not poetry also food?”

Ifs Writing Food Poetry Is

Book:(Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities

Source: (Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities

“If I'm writing, I'll say something metaphorical or approximate, whereas scientists are very precise.”

Ifs Writing Scientist Precise Metaphorical

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“It's not hard to write poorly. But to write something good, it has to be revised.”

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“Most people who are writers go through periods when they can't write.”

People Writing Periods

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“One writes to memorialize, and to bring to life again that which has been lost.”

Writing Has Beens Lost

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“'A Fair Maiden' existed in notes and sketches for perhaps a year. When I traveled, I would take along with me my folder of notes - 'ideas for stories.' Eventually, I began to write it and wrote it fairly swiftly - in perhaps two months of fairly intense writing and rewriting. Most of my time writing is really re-writing.”

Writing Years Two Ideas Stories Months Fairs Notes Intense My Time Traveled Maidens Two Months Rewriting Folders Maiden Names

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“After my husband died, I could not write much - I could not concentrate. I was too exhausted most of the time even to contemplate writing. But I did take notes - not for fiction, but for a journal, or diary, of this terrible time. I did not think that I would ever survive this interlude.”

Thinking Writing Fiction Terrible Husband Died Notes My Husband Contemplating Journal Exhausted Diaries Terrible Times

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“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.”

Way Writing Voice Fiction Wonderful Criticism Calm Rational Prose Essays Relaxation Essay Writing

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“I always rewrite the very beginning of a novel. I rewrite the beginning as I write the ending, so I may spend part of morning writing the ending, the last 100 pages approximately, and then part of the morning revising the beginning. So the style of the novel has a consistency.”

Writing May Lasts Morning Novel Style Pages Consistency Revising

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“I am not conscious of working especially hard, or of 'working' at all. Writing and teaching have always been, for me, so richly rewarding that I don't think of them as work in the usual sense of the word.”

Thinking Writing Hard Teaching Conscious Usual

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“I don't feel I write fast. I write in longhand and do so much revision. On the page, it's so old-fashioned. I could write a whole novel on scrap paper, scribbles and things. I keep looking at it and something develops. For me, using a word processor would mean staring at a screen for too many hours.”

Feels Writing Mean Whole Hours Novel Paper Pages Screens Staring Old Fashioned Scrap Revision Scribbles Processors

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“I haven't any formal schedule, but I love to write in the morning, before breakfast. Sometimes the writing goes so smoothly that I don't take a break for many hours - and consequently have breakfast at two or three in the afternoon on good days.”

Writing Two Sometimes Three Hours Break Morning Havens Breakfast Afternoon Formal Schedules Good Day

Book:Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates

Source: Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates

“I never really knew I wanted to 'be' a writer, but I was always writing from a very young age. It became more conscious as an ideal when I was in my twenties.”

Writing Age Wanted Young Conscious Ideals Twenties Young Age

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“I think all art comes out of conflict. When I write I am always looking for the dramatic kernel of an event, the junctures of people's lives when they go in one direction, not another.”

People Thinking Writing Art Events Conflict Dramatic One Direction Kernel Juncture

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“I write in longhand and assemble lots of notes, and then I try to collate them into a coherent chronology. It's like groping along in the dark. I like writing and find it challenging, but I don't find it easy.”

Writing Trying Easy Challenges Dark Notes Chronology

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“I've always been interested in writing about people, including young children who are not able to speak for themselves. As in my novel 'Black Water,' I provide a voice for someone who has died and can't speak for herself.”

People Writing Children Able Young Speak Black Voice Water Novel Died Including Young Children

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“My own way of writing is very meditated and, despite my reputation, rather slow-moving. So I do spend a good deal of time contemplating endings. The final ending is usually arrived at simply by intuition.”

Way Writing Moving My Own Deals Finals Intuition Reputation Despite Contemplating

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“My writing is often a way of 'bearing witness' for others who lack the education and the opportunity to tell their own stories, so I hope that my writing won't be affected too much by my personal life.”

Way Writing Stories Opportunity Too Much Witness Affected Personal Life Bearing Witness

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

About the Author

Born: June 16, 1938
Known for: Author
Quotes: 500

Related Topics

Writing Ifs People Thinking Art Knows Novel Might Way Book Stories Voice Men Self World Feels Reading Seems Humans Kind

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Conversations with Joyce Carol OatesRelated source material

(Woman) writer: occasions and opportunitiesRelated source material

The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, ArtRelated source material

BlondeRelated source material

I Am No One You Know: And Other StoriesRelated source material

On BoxingRelated source material

A Fair MaidenRelated source material

The AccursedRelated source material

Foxfire: confessions of a girl gangRelated source material

The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982Related source material

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