The first sentence cant be written until the final sentence is written. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
The use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Most people who are writers go through periods when they can't write. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
The appeal of writing is primarily the investigation of mystery. — 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
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 Copy Share Image
You are writing for your contemporaries - not for Posterity. If you are lucky, your contemporaries will become Posterity. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing. — 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
Prose-it might be speculated-is discourse; poetry ellipsis. Prose is spoken aloud; poetry overheard. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Writing allows for fictitious voices - the voices of persons unlike myself - that might otherwise be muted. — 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
That is the mystery: Reading Henry James can yield prose that is contrary to James, yet inspired by him. Who can understand… — 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
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
Look at the world and see what's there. It's very beautiful. It's a very exciting but in some ways treacherous world, and… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Writers and artists never pay attention to advice given by their elders, quite rightly. The only worthwhile advice is the most general:… — 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
Criticism is, for me, like essay writing, a wonderful way of relaxation; it doesn't require a heightened and mediated voice, like prose… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
By the way of connecting with subject, with theme, I was able to find a kind of lifeline. Writing's like a lifeline.… — 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
Prose-it might be speculated-is discourse; poetry ellipsis. Prose is spoken aloud; poetry overheard. The one is presumably articulate and social, a shared… — 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
When writing goes painfully, when it’s hideously difficult, and one feels real despair (ah, the despair, silly as it is, is real!)–then… — 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
I don't feel I write fast. I write in longhand and do so much revision. On the page, it's so old-fashioned. I… — 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. It may be the… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
“I believe that art is the highest expression of the human spirit. ~ I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
“I am made to think, not for the first time, that in my writing I have plunged ahead-head-on, heedlessly one might say-or… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
“I always instruct my students to write a great deal. Write a journal. Take notes. Write when you are feeling wretched, when… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
“I tell my students to write of their true subjects. How will they know when they are writing of their true subjects?… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Very few writers of distinction in fact were outstanding as undergraduates. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Writing is a solitary occupation, and one of its hazards is loneliness. But an advantage of loneliness is privacy, autonomy and freedom. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Detroit, my 'great' subject, made me the person I am, consequently the writer I am - for better or worse. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
It's not hard to write poorly. But to write something good, it has to be revised. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
Life and people are complex. A writer as an artist doesn't have the personality of a politician. We don't see the world… — 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
