“Starting a novel is like standing in a field and waiting for lightning to strike.” — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
“... the hopeful young author had no doubt that books might change the world.” — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
The greatest works of literature seem to embody both "art" and "morality". — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Technique holds a reader from sentence to sentence, but only content will stay in his mind. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
The novel is the affliction for which only the novel is the cure. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Writers are notoriously unable to know about themselves. Faulkner thought 'The Fable' was his best novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald liked 'Tender Is… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I have read on a Kindle. But the Kindle we had only worked for about eight months then it stopped working. You… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
“You ordinary people who read and do not write, who 'like to read' and know nothing of the sufferings of writers, how… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
The books I read I do enjoy, very much; otherwise I wouldn't read them. Most of them are for review, for the… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
To be true to life, a novel must have an ending that is inevitable given the specific personalities of the characters involved.… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Don't try to anticipate an ideal reader - or any reader. He/she might exist - but is reading someone else. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I rarely write in my own voice except in book reviews and memoirs; otherwise, I am writing in mediated voices, modulated in… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
When people say there is too much violence in my books, what they are saying is there is too much reality in… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
As a teacher at Princeton, I'm surrounded by people who work hard so I just make good use of my time. And… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
To write a novel is to embark on a quest that is very romantic. People have visions, and the next step is… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I don't teach literature from my perspective as 'Joyce Carol Oates.' I try to teach fiction from the perspective of each writer.… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I haven't the faintest idea what my royalties are. I haven't the faintest idea how many copies of books sold, or how… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I wrote a novel called 'Blonde,' which is about Norma Jean Baker, who becomes Marilyn Monroe, which I called a fictitious biography.… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Often in gothic novels there's a large house, an estate, and it's symbolic of that culture. Usually it's sort of moldering or… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
When I'm really involved or getting towards the end of a novel, I can write for up to ten hours a day.… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
'The Accursed' is very much a novel about social injustice as the consequence of the terrible, tragic division of classes - the… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
The other book that I worry no one reads anymore is James Joyce's Ulysses. It's not easy, but every page is wonderful… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Novels usually evolve out of 'character.' Characters generate stories, and the shape of a novel is entirely imagined but should have an… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I don't think that any 'ism' is higher than literature or art. So I'm a formalist. I greatly honor and respect the… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
“Hating "The Great Gatsby" (the novel) is like spitting into the Grand Canyon. It will not be going away anytime soon, but… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
A writer who has published as many books as I have has developed, of necessity, a hide like a rhino's, while inside… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Even as a young child, I was a lover of books and of the spaces in which, as indeed in a sacred… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Before you can write a novel you have to have a number of ideas that come together. One idea is not enough. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I was writing novels in high school and apprenticed myself in a way both to Faulkner and to Hemingway. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Productivity is a relative matter. And it's really insignificant: What is ultimately important is a writer's strongest books. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Only when you have completed a novel, or a story, can you return to the beginning and revise or rewrite. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I am inclined to think that as I grow older I will come to be infatuated with the art of revision, and… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
It is important for me to discover the ideal title, for without this title the story or novel isn't quite in focus. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Novels begin, not on the page, but in meditation and day-dreaming - In thinking, not writing. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Early publication can be a dubious blessing: we all know writers who would give anything not to have published their first book,… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
It's always a challenge to discover the most effective first sentence, and the most effective final sentence, in a chapter for instance,… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Running! If there's any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can't think of what it might be. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share
You need so much energy and encouragement to write that if someone says something negative, some of that energy goes. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share
I learned long ago that being Lewis Carroll was infinitely more exciting than being Alice. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share
Paradox: how do we know what we have failed to see because we have no language to express it, thus we cannot know that… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share
At all crucial moments in our lives we want to speak without knowing what to say. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share
The challenge is to resist circumstances. Any idiot can be happy in a happy place, but moral courage is required to be happy in… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share
The first sentence cant be written until the final sentence is written. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share
“Did you know, Marianne: how by breaking the code that day, you broke it forever? For us all?” — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share
'The Accursed' is very much a novel about social injustice as the consequence of the terrible, tragic division of classes - the exploitation not… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share
And this is the forbidden truth, the unspeakable taboo - that evil is not always repellent but frequently attractive; that it has the power… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share
I don't think that writer's block exists really. I think that when you're trying to do something prematurely, it just won't come. Certain subjects… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share
... 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 Copy Share
