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Marriage Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

16 Marriage quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

All Marriage quotes Joyce Carol Oates’s page

Joyce Carol Oates approaches marriage with a literary depth that probes both its darkness and its devotion. Across sixteen thoughtful lines, she paints a vivid picture of the emotional currents that run through shared lives, inviting readers to contemplate the intricate dance of intimacy and individuality.

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“A woman who has lost her husband is invalid, thus an invalid. In”

Joyce Carol Oates

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When a marriage ends, who is left to understand it?

Joyce Carol Oates

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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

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“In all marriages there is the imbalance: one who loves more than the other. One who licks wounds in secret, the rust-taste…

Joyce Carol Oates

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“HUSBAND: Is something wrong? BETHIE: Why--why do you ask? HUSBAND: You looked so lonely, suddenly. As if you'd forgotten I'm here.”

Joyce Carol Oates

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The institution of marriage is just formalizing an emotion, an attempt to make it seem permanent. The emotion will last or it…

Joyce Carol Oates

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I write so much because my cat sits on my lap. She purrs so I don't want to get up. She's so…

Joyce Carol Oates

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A lot of widows feel that they have betrayed their spouse by continuing to live. It's deranged thinking. I know that, but…

Joyce Carol Oates

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“Mom’s new husband was eleven years older than Mom. He had been Mom’s boss at the Buick dealership where she’d worked until…

Joyce Carol Oates

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I don't know what marriages are like in general, but there are many things which I don't talk about with my husband.…

Joyce Carol Oates

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After my husband died, I could not write much - I could not concentrate. I was too exhausted most of the time…

Joyce Carol Oates

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“A female is essentially a cunt, the pure purpose of the female is cunt, but a woman, a wife, is a cunt…

Joyce Carol Oates

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“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

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“She was gracious if oddly shy with his friends when they came to visit; she listened eagerly as women spoke to her…

Joyce Carol Oates

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The joyous fulfillment of your sex : the sacred duties of beloved wife, and helpmeet, and mother. In opposition to the vulgar…

Joyce Carol Oates

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“When he was three years old Jackie ran into the house crying. I asked, "What's happened? What's wrong?" He showed me his…

Joyce Carol Oates

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More by Joyce Carol Oates

“A woman who has lost her husband is invalid, thus an invalid. In”

Joyce Carol Oates

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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

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You need so much energy and encouragement to write that if someone says something negative, some of that energy goes.

Joyce Carol Oates

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I learned long ago that being Lewis Carroll was infinitely more exciting than being Alice.

Joyce Carol Oates

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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

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At all crucial moments in our lives we want to speak without knowing what to say.

Joyce Carol Oates

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A writer’s life is in his work, and that is the place to find him.

Joyce Carol Oates

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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

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The first sentence cant be written until the final sentence is written.

Joyce Carol Oates

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“Did you know, Marianne: how by breaking the code that day, you broke it forever? For us all?”

Joyce Carol Oates

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'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

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Keep a light, hopeful heart. But expect the worst.

Joyce Carol Oates

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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

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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

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... 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

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