Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

American author (born 1938)

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Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American author who has published 58 novels, plays and novellas, as well as volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014 and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. She is a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley where she teaches short fiction.

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Pen Names: Rosamond Smith • Lauren Kelly

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That glass sliver in the heart. Amid a fluttery-delicious Benzedrine rush, virtually every remark made to you is freighted with destiny, a sweet-painful stab in the heart. And Benzedrine and champagne, what a combination! The Blond Actress was only just discovering what everybody else in Hollywood knew.

Her wish to die was as pervasive as a dial tone: you lift the receiver, it's always there.

The worst thing: to give yourself away in exchange for not enough love.

An actress wants to be seen. An actress wants to be loved. By multitudes of people, not just one lone man.

Alone,alone! It is a fact, you hear more acutely and you see and think most acutely,when you are alone.
Alone, alone! But there is happiness in alone, if you believe you have chosen it.

Nothing is accidental in the universe — this is one of my Laws of Physics — except the entire universe itself, which is Pure Accident, pure divinity. So it cannot be an accident that I think of you so constantly.

Lawrence is the supreme poet of Eros. No recriminations, no reproaches, no guilt, no 'morality'. For what's 'morality' but a leash around the neck? A noose? What's 'morality' but what other people want you to do, for their own, selfish, unstated purposes?

One man's insanity is another man's genius; someday the world will recognize the genius in my insanity.

The writer is a “somewhat mystical” — or do I mean “mythical”? — person.

Did you know, Marianne: how by breaking the code that day, you broke it forever? For us all?

Very few writers of distinction in fact were outstanding as undergraduates.

"Hating "The Great Gatsby" (the novel) is like spitting into the Grand Canyon. It will not be going away anytime soon, but you will be."

Why should I want what's good for me?' Beatrice asked him, smiling. 'Is that what you want for yourself - only what's good for you?

"The distinction between "assistant" and intern" is a simple one: assistants are paid, interns are not.

But of course interns are paid, in experience.

I love insult, it's always honest.