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Quote by Joyce Carol Oates

“As a librarian for 18 years at the Merck branch of the Trenton Public Library, I was sorely tested by the slow-witted and obtuse among the citizenry”

Quote by Joyce Carol Oates

Author

Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates

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. more

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“The room was curved, wide, and empty except for one enormous rock in the center. Easily twice Biddy's height, it glowed with faint green-gold shimmers beneath its smooth surface. She had seen that light before. Flashes of it in the old oak, when Rowan drew magic through the skin of the tree. And once, in the scrying glass, as a glow on the wall illuminating Rowan as he lay in enchanted sleep in an underground room. This was it, the room where Rowan had come to steal magic on the night he had nearly never come home. The vault, he had called it. The place where the Council hoarded its wealth like fairy gold.”

“I never feel so much myself as when I'm in a hot bath. I lay in that tub on the seventeenth floor of this hotel for-women-only, high up over the jazz and push of New York, for near onto an hour, and I felt myself growing pure again. I don't believe in baptism or the waters of Jordan or anything like that, but I guess I feel about a hot bath the way those religious people feel about holy water.”

“Interestingly, the word munkasiran is translated as dejected, though literally it means broken. It conveys a sense of being humbled in the majestic presence of God. It refers to the awesome realization that each of us, at every moment, lives and acts before the august presence of the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the one God besides whom there is no power or might in all the universe. When one seriously reflects on God’s perfect watch over His creation, the countless blessings He sends down, and then considers the kind of deeds one brings before Him—what possible feelings can one generate except humility and degrees of shame? With these strong feelings, one implores God to change one’s state, make one’s desires consonant with His pleasure—giving up one’s designs for God’s designs. This is pure courtesy with respect to God, a requisite for spiritual purification.”

“apportionment in the world. Thus, one is opposing how God meted out sustenance in concord with His wisdom. Therefore, one must oppose his own ego's desires and seek treatment for this disease with the healing force of acceptance of the divine decree and prayer on behalf of one's enemies in a way that suppresses the ego [nafs].”

“On the Day of Judgment no one is safe save the one who returns to God with a pure heart. (Quran) Surely in the breasts of humanity is a lump of flesh, if sound then the whole body is sound, and if corrupt then the whole body is corrupt. Is it not the heart? (Prophet Muhammad ) Blessed are the pure at heart, for they shall see God. (Jesus )”