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
Because the meaning of a story does not lie on its surface, visible and self-defining, does not mean that meaning does not… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
In a sense, I may not consciously know what I'm doing. I feel that I'm telling a story. I'm a kind of… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
My writing is often a way of 'bearing witness' for others who lack the education and the opportunity to tell their own… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Though I am never exactly "blocked" I do have difficult periods. I am led by a fascination with material - the challenge… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
When I complete a novel I set it aside, and begin work on short stories, and eventually another long work. When I… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
'A Fair Maiden' existed in notes and sketches for perhaps a year. When I traveled, I would take along with me my… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
If Shakespeare's great plays are variants of stories, even novels, you can see how each character is telling his story from his… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I feel akin to [William] Shakespeare in the sense that, as I see it, he lived to dramatize the unfailingly exciting, unfathomably… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Characters begin as voices, then gain presence by being viewed in others' eyes. Characters define one another in dramatic contexts. It is… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Vividly imagined, beautifully written, at times almost unbearably suspenseful-the stories in Kristiana Kahakauwila's debut collection, This Is Paradise, are boldly inventive in… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
My students often say, 'My roommate read this story and really liked it,' and it's hard to convince them that there are… — 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
No, the thing is, we all love storytelling, and as a writer you get to tell stories all the time. — 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 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
Primarily, 'Black Girl/White Girl' is the story of two very different, yet somehow 'fated' girls; for Genna, her 'friendship' with Minette is… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I can't imagine a mental life, a spiritual existence, not inextricably bound up with language of a formal, mediated nature. Telling stories,… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
“A woman who has lost her husband is invalid, thus an invalid. In” — 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 Image
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 Image
I learned long ago that being Lewis Carroll was infinitely more exciting than being Alice. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
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 Image
At all crucial moments in our lives we want to speak without knowing what to say. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
A writer’s life is in his work, and that is the place to find him. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
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 Image
The first sentence cant be written until the final sentence is written. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
“Did you know, Marianne: how by breaking the code that day, you broke it forever? For us all?” — 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 exploitation not… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
![“I feel akin to [William] Shakespeare in the sense that, as I see it, he lived to dramatize the unfailingly exciting, unfathomably strange interplay among human beings that constitutes "scenes" in his plays, and constitutes "story" in prose fiction.” quote by Joyce Carol Oates](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/c4d/joyce-carol-oates-344_exciting_i-feel-akin-to-william-shakespeare-in-th_2191592.jpg)
