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Quote by Joyce Carol Oates

“The books I read I do enjoy, very much; otherwise I wouldn't read them. Most of them are for review, for the New York Review of Books, and substantial.”

Quote by Joyce Carol Oates

Author

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 domestic lives we live - which may be accidental, or not entirely of our making - help to make possible our writing lives; our imaginations are freed, or stimulated, by the very prospect of companionship, quiet, a predictable and consoling routine.”

Writing May Helping Imagination Quiet Routine Companionship Writing Life Predictable Consoling Domestic Life

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“The historical Woodrow Wilson suffered from numerous complaints which we might today label as psychosomatic. Yet, Wilson did have a stroke as a relatively young man of 39 and seemed always to be ill. He was 'high-strung' - intensely neurotic - yet a charismatic personality nonetheless.”

Men Might Today Young Personality Historical Ill Labels Young Man Complaints Strokes Neurotic Wilson Charismatic High Strung

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“The relationship between parents and children, but especially between mothers and daughters, is tremendously powerful, scarcely to be comprehended in any rational way.”

Way Children Mother Parent Powerful Daughter Rational Mother And Daughter Children And Parents

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“There should really not be anything gratuitous in a work of art. Sometimes what seems as if it's gratuitous may be a passage in which a character is being characterized so that the reader comes to know him or her better.”

Ifs Knows Should May Art Sometimes Character Seems Reader Works Of Art Passages

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“To be true to life, a novel must have an ending that is inevitable given the specific personalities of the characters involved. The novelist must not impose an ending upon them.”

Character Given Novel Personality Involved Being True Inevitable Novelists True Life

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“To write a novel is to embark on a quest that is very romantic. People have visions, and the next step is to execute them. That's a very romantic project. Like Edvard Munch's strange dreamlike canvases where people are stylized, like 'The Scream.' Munch must have had that vision in a dream, he never saw it.”

People Writing Dream Next Vision Steps Novel Saws Strange Projects Scream Quests Next Steps Very Romantic

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“We are all regionalists in our origins, however 'universal' our themes and characters, and without our cherished hometowns and childhood landscapes to nourish us, we would be like plants set in shallow soil. Our souls must take root - almost literally.”

Soul Character Would Be Childhood Roots Universal Plant Landscape Theme Soil Shallow Hometown

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“'We Were the Mulvaneys' is perhaps the novel closest to my heart. I think of it as a valentine to a passing way of American life, and to my own particular child - and girlhood in upstate New York. Everyone in the novel is enormously close to me, including Marianne's cat, Muffin, who was in fact my own cat.”

Thinking Way Heart Children Facts My Own Novel New York Particular My Heart Cat Including Passing Passings Closest Valentine American Life Girlhood Muffins Upstate New York

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“When I complete a novel I set it aside, and begin work on short stories, and eventually another long work. When I complete that novel I return to the earlier novel and rewrite much of it. In the meantime the second novel lies in a desk drawer.”

Long Stories Lying Novel Return Short Story Desks Drawers

Book:Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates

Source: Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates

“When I was very little, four or five, I did comic strip drawings, so my first novel had no words. I couldn't write and thought adult handwriting was a mysterious scribble. When I was 14, my grandmother gave me a typewriter and I started writing in a different way.”

Way Writing Firsts Littles Different Novel Five Four Adults Drawing Mysterious Comic Different Ways Grandmother My Grandmother Typewriters Handwriting Comic Strips Scribbles

Author:Joyce Carol Oates