"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."
"Productivity is a relative matter. And it's really insignificant: What is ultimately important is a writer's strongest books."
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Source: Joyce Carol Oates, Lee Milazzo (1989). “Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates”, p.63, Univ. Press of Mississippi
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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."