"I have so many favorite writers, it's very hard to select a few... of classic writers, I have always admired Emily Dickinson and Henry David Thoreau."
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Quote collection
Joyce Carol Oates quotes (page 12 of 23)
453 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"You need so much energy and encouragement to write that if someone says something negative, some of that energy goes."
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"My writing is often a way of 'bearing witness' for others who lack the education and the opportunity to tell their own stories, so I hope that my writing won't be affected too much by my personal life."
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"Was it confusing because it was artistic, or artistic because it was confusing?"
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"If I'm writing, I'll say something metaphorical or approximate, whereas scientists are very precise."
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"Not to be alone. To be spared the possibility of knowing oneself, in aloneness."
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"Love is an indescribable sensation - perhaps a conviction, a sense of certitude."
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"People have libraries at home, they have bookshelves, they have CDs. And they sort of try, people try to bring great artists into their lives, into their physical houses and sort of live with portions of them. But they're not really deeply engaging with them."
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"Anyone who teaches knows that you don't really experience a text until you've taught it, in loving detail, with an intelligent and responsive class."
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"To be true to life, a novel must have an ending that is inevitable given the specific personalities of the characters involved. The novelist must not impose an ending upon them."
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"Writers are notoriously unable to know about themselves. Faulkner thought 'The Fable' was his best novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald liked 'Tender Is the Night,' an experimental novel."
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"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?"
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"The appeal of writing is primarily the investigation of mystery."
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"On the elusive gift of blending austerity of craft with elasticity of allure."
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"Acting is the loneliest profession I know."
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"When you are writing literary writing, you are communicating something subtextual with emotions and poetry. The prose has to have a voice; it's not just typing. It takes a while to get that voice."
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"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 I don't read it. I think I'm a realist, with a realistic sensibility of history and the tragedy of history."
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"There is the expectation that a younger generation has the opportunity to redeem the crimes and failings of their elders and would have the strength and idealism to do so."
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". . . there is a wish in the heart of mankind to be distracted and confused. Truth is but one attraction, and not always the most powerful."
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"It's always a challenge to discover the most effective first sentence, and the most effective final sentence, in a chapter for instance, and in the book as a whole."
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