"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."
"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."
3 likes
Source: Joyce Carol Oates, Lee Milazzo (1989). “Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates”, p.64, Univ. Press of Mississippi
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Joyce Carol Oates
"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."