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Quote by Joyce Carol Oates

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

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

Ifs Thinking Writing Reading Wish Dull Yield Uninspiring

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“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

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“I tend to think in dramatic terms. In life, there may be an actual drama, but it would be the fictionalized, imagined drama that engaged me.”

Thinking May Would Be Term Drama Dramatic Engaged

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“There is nothing "ordinary" about reality.”

Reality Ordinary

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“Obviously, there is pleasure in the execution of any sort of art, and using language, as Nabokov felt also, is an exquisite process.”

Art Language Felt Process Pleasure Execution Exquisite

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

Writing Persons Might Voice

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“I don't believe in predestination - except for genetic predilections.”

Believe Don't Believe Predestination

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“Much in our lives is chance.”

Life Is Chance Our Lives

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“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

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“Each time I undertake to reread Virginia Woolf, I am somewhat baffled by the signature breathlessness and relentlessly "poetic" tone, the shimmering impressionism, so very different from the vivid, precise, magisterial (and often very funny) prose of her contemporary James Joyce.”

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Author:Joyce Carol Oates