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
After my parents passed away - in 2000 and 2003 - I felt I could take the time to think about the… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
The only people who claim that money is not important are people who have enough money so that they are relieved of… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
And so you must grant to God what is God and not try to think of what you have lost, for that… — 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
You wake up one morning, those years are gone. There's a comfort in this fact perhaps. I want to think that there… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I am not conscious of working especially hard, or of 'working' at all. Writing and teaching have always been, for me, so… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I think it's very important for writers and artists generally to be witnesses to the world, and to be transparent. To let… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I've always been so interested in personal history. I'm very fascinated by my parents' and my grandparents' generations. I seem to think… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Whoever was stupid was beneath worry or thought; you did not have to figure them out. This eliminated hundreds of people. In… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I did not consider that I would lead a literary life. I'd thought initially, as a young girl, that I would be… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I think whenever we think of our hometowns, we tend to think of very specific people: with whom you rode on the… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
When one crosses over from an activity, or the verb, of writing or doing, and becomes a noun, like "a writer" I… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
She thought that this man was her savior, that he had come to her at a time in her life when her… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
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.… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
The written word, obviously, is very inward, and when we're reading, we're thinking. It's a sort of spiritual, meditative activity. When we're… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
There are boxers possessed of such remarkable intuition, such uncanny prescience, one would think they were somehow recalling their fights, not fighting… — 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
Running! If there's any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can't think what it might be. In running… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
After my husband died, I could not write much - I could not concentrate. I was too exhausted most of the time… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Reading yields a wish to write, I think, except if the reading is dull and uninspiring. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I tend to think in dramatic terms. In life, there may be an actual drama, but it would be the fictionalized, imagined… — 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
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 Copy Share Image
I used to think getting old was about vanity but actually it's about losing people you love. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I think what distresses me most in my life is that I have so many ideas I consider exciting ideas that I… — 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
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
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
I think all art comes out of conflict. When I write I am always looking for the dramatic kernel of an event,… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
'We Were the Mulvaneys' is perhaps the novel closest to my heart. I think of it as a valentine to a passing… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I don't think I'm morbid by nature. Serious writers have always written about serious subjects. Lighthearted material doesn't appeal to me, and… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Henry David Thoreau is very independent-minded, very iconoclastic, and had quite a corrosive sense of humor. I think that I probably have… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
You people who have survived childhood don't remeber any longer what it was like. You think children are whole, uncomplicated creatures, and… — 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
