I don't believe in predestination - except for genetic predilections. Joyce Carol Oates More Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates More Quotes From Joyce Carol Oates Great art is cathartic; it is always moral. Joyce Carol Oates great-artmoralart you're an insomniac, you tell yourself: there are profound truths revealed only to the insomniac by night like those phosphorescent minerals veined and glimmering in the dark but coarse and ordinary otherwise; you have to examine such minerals in the absence of light to discover their beauty, you tell yourself. Joyce Carol Oates lightdarknight Ambitious, absorbing, and poignantly moving. Joyce Carol Oates absorbingambitiousmoving Who is to blame for this most recent of sports disgraces in America? The culture that flings young athletes like Tyson up out of obscurity, makes millionaires of them and watches them self-destruct? Joyce Carol Oates athleteselfsports I do what I want to do. It was a brash statement of(her)girlhood. Now she was an adult, the boast seemed quaint. For rarely do you know what you want. Even after you've done it you can't say clearly if that was what you'd wanted or just something that happened to you, like weather. Joyce Carol Oates adultsdoneweather The appeal of writing is primarily the investigation of mystery. Joyce Carol Oates investigationmysterywriting Even as a young child, I was a lover of books and of the spaces in which, as indeed in a sacred temple, books might safely reside. Joyce Carol Oates spacebookchildren One man's insanity is another man's genius; someday the world will recognize the genius in my insanity. Joyce Carol Oates geniusmeninsanity Prose-it might be speculated-is discourse; poetry ellipsis. Prose is spoken aloud; poetry overheard. The one is presumably articulate and social, a shared language, the voice of "communication"; the other is private, allusive, teasing, sly, idiosyncratic as the spider's delicate web, a kind of witchcraft unfathomable to ordinary minds. Joyce Carol Oates communicationvoicewriting Of the widow's countless death-duties there is really just one that matters: on the first anniversary of her husband's death the widow should think I kept myself alive. Joyce Carol Oates husbanddeaththinking I want to tell you that I love you I want to tell you that I love you I want to tell you that I love I love I love I love but you do not. Joyce Carol Oates breakupwantlove-you Most people think that a widow is inhabiting some elegiac world of - it's like Mozart's 'Requiem Mass.' You know, it's very beautiful and elevated thoughts and some measure of dignity. I didn't have that experience at all. I had one pratfall after another. Joyce Carol Oates beautifulpeoplethinking Mark Twain was very unhappy with himself for various reasons. He was very unhappy with America of this time. He thought it was terrible we had no anti-lynching laws, and he was also a feminist, and he was also very concerned with anti-Semitism. He was a good man, but he was hard on himself. Joyce Carol Oates lynchinglawmen If you're living with a scientist, you see the world differently than you do with a humanist. It's in some ways very subtle, the differences in perceiving reality. Joyce Carol Oates differencesrealityworld The body can't distinguish between cleansing and punishing for the body is ignorant, and mute besides. Joyce Carol Oates cleansingignorantbody Blood transforms the warm bath water and, in it, I see weakly that this was a mistake. The razor's cut is not deep, nevertheless the blood rushes out happily in the warm water as if kin to it, the same tender substance. Rising a new person transformed with an icy sense of error I go to the sink and turn on cold water which is not friendly to blood. The cut is deeper than imagined. Joyce Carol Oates self-harmsuicidemistake I don't know what marriages are like in general, but there are many things which I don't talk about with my husband. We discuss practical problems, but I wouldn't sit down with him and talk about the distant past. It's somewhat in contrast to other Americans, who feel that they have to confess things, but I'm really not like that. Joyce Carol Oates husbandproblempast Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing. Joyce Carol Oates editorswritingremember We are the species that clamors to be lied to. Joyce Carol Oates clamorspecieslied I don't feel I write fast. I write in longhand and do so much revision. On the page, it's so old-fashioned. I could write a whole novel on scrap paper, scribbles and things. I keep looking at it and something develops. For me, using a word processor would mean staring at a screen for too many hours. Joyce Carol Oates paperwritingmean
