Art is about freedom of expression, and should not be molded to fit any propaganda or lofty ideal. Joyce Carol Oates More Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates More Quotes From Joyce Carol Oates 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. Joyce Carol Oates writingclassmen This is my life now. Absurd, but unpredictable. Not absurd because unpredictable but unpredictable because absurd. If I have lost the meaning of my life, I might still find small treasured things among the spilled and pilfered trash. Joyce Carol Oates absurdlostmight Much of my writing is energized by unresolved memories - something like ghosts in the psychological sense. Joyce Carol Oates ghostwritingmemories My writing is full of lives I might have led. Joyce Carol Oates writingmight An actress wants to be seen. An actress wants to be loved. By multitudes of people, not just one lone man. Joyce Carol Oates wantmenpeople I can entertain the proposition that life is a metaphor for boxing--for one of those bouts that go on and on, round following round, jabs, missed punches, clinches, nothing determined, again the bell and again and you and your opponent so evenly matched it's impossible not to see that your opponent is you.... Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing. Joyce Carol Oates boxinggoes-onlife At all crucial moments in our lives we want to speak without knowing what to say. Joyce Carol Oates speakknowingwant To the west, the Pacific Ocean, which revulses me, for its vastness cannot be fitted into any box. Joyce Carol Oates vastnessoceanwest To claim - to claim repeatedly - that you are innocent of what it is claimed by others that you have done, or might have done, or are in some quarters strongly suspected of having done, is never enough unless others, numerous others, will say it for you. Joyce Carol Oates innocentdonemight Boxing is about being hit rather more than it is about hitting, just as it is about feeling pain, if not devastating psychological paralysis, more than it is about winning. Joyce Carol Oates boxingpainwinning Insomniac is an impassioned work-an inspired amalgam of academic and first-hand research, memoir, analysis, and the kind of obsessive brooding we associate with the insomniac state. Much here is fascinating, and much is upsetting; here is a cri de coeur from a lifetime insomniac that is sure to appeal to the vast army of fellow insomniacs the world over. Joyce Carol Oates upsetarmyhands I work very slowly. It's like building a ladder, where you're building your own ladder rung by rung, and you're climbing the ladder. It's not the best way to build a ladder, but I don't know any other way. Joyce Carol Oates laddersclimbingway I come from people who did not go to college. They didn't even finish high school. People who one might call ordinary Americans who are very hardworking. Joyce Carol Oates hard-workcollegeschool How does the poet transform his banal thoughts (are not most thoughts banal?) into such stunning forms, into beauty? Joyce Carol Oates poetformdoe 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. Joyce Carol Oates hoursletterswriting There was a Greek philosopher who taught that, of all things, not to have been born is the sweetest state. But I believe sleep is the sweetest state. You're dead, yet alive. There's no sensation so exquisite. Joyce Carol Oates greeksleepbelieve The use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence. Joyce Carol Oates silenceusewriting I probably spend 90% of my time revising what I've written. Joyce Carol Oates revisingmy-timewritten Boxing is rough. Even if you win, you get hurt. Joyce Carol Oates hurtwinningsports Better to be despised, then, than to be ignored; or damned with condescending praise. Joyce Carol Oates condescendingignoredpraise
