"I do what I want to do. It……" — Joyce Carol Oates
"I do what I want to do. It was a brash statement of(her)girlhood. Now she was an adult, the boast seemed quaint. For rarely do you know what you want. Even after you've done it you can't say clearly if that was what you'd wanted or just something that happened to you, like weather."
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Joyce Carol Oates
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312 Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates has 312 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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The suicide does not play the game, does not observe the rules. He leaves the party too soon, and leaves…
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The institution of marriage is just formalizing an emotion, an attempt to make it seem permanent. The emotion will last…
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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.…
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The body can't distinguish between cleansing and punishing for the body is ignorant, and mute besides.
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Alone, she took hot baths and sat exhausted in the steaming water, wondering at her perpetual exhaustion. All that winter…
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Blood transforms the warm bath water and, in it, I see weakly that this was a mistake. The razor's cut…
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The brain is a muscle of busy hills, the struggle of unthought things with things eternally thought.
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The mere passage of time makes us all exiles.
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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…
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Of the widow's countless death-duties there is really just one that matters: on the first anniversary of her husband's death…
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Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing.
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We are the species that clamors to be lied to.
See all 312 quotes by Joyce Carol Oates »
More Adult Quotes
This quote is filed under Adult Quotes,
one of 1,513 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.
— Margaret Atwood
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Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.
— Margaret Atwood
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I grew up in a family that was multifaceted, sexually oriented, and pretty much open to everything. And because I…
— Drew Barrymore
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I was raised on government cheese. As an adult, in my first marriage, my husband and I worked real hard…
— Roseanne Barr
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When you're young, you're always wondering when you're actually going to feel like a grownup. And I think you probably…
— Drew Barrymore
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If you want your kids to listen to you, don't yell at them. Whisper. Make them lean in. My kids…
— Mario Batali
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There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the…
— Jean Baudrillard
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What is an adult? A child blown up by age.
— Simone de Beauvoir
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The average adult laughs 15 times a day; the average child, more than 400 times.
— Martha Beck
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Children who assume adult responsibilities feel old when they're young.
— Martha Beck
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Only since the Industrial Revolution have most people worked in places away from their homes or been left to raise…
— Martha Beck
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An Adult faith does not follow the waves of fashion and the latest novelties.
— Pope Benedict XVI
See all 1,513 Adult Quotes »