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. Joyce Carol Oates More Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates More Quotes From Joyce Carol Oates The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt. Joyce Carol Oates overcoming doubt art Your punishment if you're a woman. Not loved enough. Joyce Carol Oates punishment ifs enough If food is poetry, is not poetry also food? Joyce Carol Oates poetry-is writing food Literature, art, like civilization itself, are only accidents. Joyce Carol Oates literature civilization art For obviously the advantage for most writers is that no one sees them. The writer is invisible, which confers power. Joyce Carol Oates invisible advantage I write so much because my cat sits on my lap. She purrs so I don't want to get up. She's so much more calming than my husband. Joyce Carol Oates cat husband writing 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. Joyce Carol Oates good-day writing morning Without craft, art remains private. Without art, craft is merely hackwork. Joyce Carol Oates creative writing art Only when men are connected to large, universal goals are they really happy-and one result of their happiness is a rush of creative activity. Joyce Carol Oates creativity goal men We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language. Joyce Carol Oates ancestry memories blood The relationship between parents and children, but especially between mothers and daughters, is tremendously powerful, scarcely to be comprehended in any rational way. Joyce Carol Oates daughter mother children Death is just the last scene of the last act. Joyce Carol Oates lasts scene acting I am the presence standing here at this juncture of Time & Space- who else? Joyce Carol Oates juncture standing space For politics is in its essence as Adams had said, the 'systematic organization of hatred': either you were organized or you were not. Joyce Carol Oates organization hatred essence I believe that art is the highest expression of the human spirit. I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely finite and ephemeral; to participate in something mysterious and communal called 'culture' - and that this yearning is as strong in our species as the yearning to reproduce the species. Joyce Carol Oates strong believe art Her visits to her former hometown were infrequent and often painful. Pilgrimages fueled by the tepid oxygen of family duty, unease, guilt. The more Esther loved her parents, the more helpless she felt, as they aged, to protect them from harm. A moral coward, she kept her distance. Joyce Carol Oates distance oxygen parent What does it mean to be born? After we die, will it be the same thing as it was before we were born? Or a different kind of nothingness? Because there might be knowledge then. Memory. Joyce Carol Oates doe memories mean Not what the mind sees, but what the mind imagines the eye must see. Joyce Carol Oates imagine eye mind ... such speculation is like staring into the hot white sun. you know the sun is there but you can't see a thing. Joyce Carol Oates white sun hot The institution of marriage is just formalizing an emotion, an attempt to make it seem permanent. The emotion will last or it won't last; nothing can guarantee it. Joyce Carol Oates wedding marriage guarantees
