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
A writer’s life is in his work, and that is the place to find him. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
The first sentence cant be written until the final sentence is written. — 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
'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
I've always been interested in writing about people, including young children who are not able to speak for themselves. As in my… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I was writing novels in high school and apprenticed myself in a way both to Faulkner and to Hemingway. — 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
The appeal of writing is primarily the investigation of mystery. — 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
If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a… — 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 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
Without craft, art remains private. Without art, craft is merely hackwork. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
A writer can't subtract or excise any of his/her past because doing so would erase the work produced during that time. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
while there are 'women writers' there are not, and have never been, 'men writers.' This is an empty category, a class without… — 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
Most people who are writers go through periods when they can't write. — 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
On the elusive gift of blending austerity of craft with elasticity of allure. — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
“I’ve never thought of writing as the mere arrangement of words on the page but the attempted embodiment of a vision; a… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
For the writer, the serial killer is, abstractly, an analogue of the imagination's caprices and amorality; the sense that, no matter the… — 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
The use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence. — 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
