"Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart."
"I don't read for amusement, I read for enlightenment. I do a lot of reviewing, so I have a steady assignment of reading. I'm also a judge for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which gives awards to literature and nonfiction."
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Source: Joyce Carol Oates (2008). “Wild Nights!: Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway”, Ecco
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"If my favorite, most comfortable place is by our fireplace in cold weather, expedient places are on an airplane, in a waiting room or even waiting in line; frequently these days, while on the phone having been 'put on hold.'"
"Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul."
"I never change, I simply become more myself."
"How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look."
"Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality."