"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."
"Just as our historical beginnings are utterly mysterious-why are we born? why when and as we are?-so too are the beginnings of works of art and of "artists."
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Source: Joyce Carol Oates (1989). “(Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities”, Plume
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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."