“Legally I am a ‘widow’ — that is the box I must check. But beyond that — I am not sure that I exist.” — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
“In this way unwittingly the Widow-to-Be is assuring her husband’s death—his doom. Even as she believes she is behaving intelligently—“shrewdly” and “reasonably”—she… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I would suggest the widow do things the husband used to do, so he seems to be there with you. You will… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I should say, one of the things about being a widow or a widower, you really, really need a sense of humor,… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
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… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Most people think that a widow is inhabiting some elegiac world of - it's like Mozart's 'Requiem Mass.' You know, it's very… — 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
