Joyce Carol Oates Quotes
Best 18 Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates
“A writer’s life is in his work, and that is the place to find him.”
“Art is about freedom of expression, and should not be molded to fit any propaganda or lofty ideal.”
“Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!”
“Beauty is a question of optics. All sight is illusion.”
“Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor.”
“How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.”
“I learned long ago that being Lewis Carroll was infinitely more exciting than being Alice.”
“I never change, I simply become more myself.”
“Loneliness is dangerous because if aloneness does not lead to God, it leads to the devil. It leads to the self.”
“Novels begin, not on the page, but in meditation and day-dreaming - In thinking, not writing.”
“People might be surprised to know how much I throw away. For every page I publish, I throw 10 pages away.”
“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.”
“See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be.”
“There is nothing ordinary about reality.”
“Ultimately, we measure ourselves against our own ideas of idealism and perfection, and we don't always come very close to them.”
The Faith of a Writer Quotes
“Art is the highest expression of the human spirit.”
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“All forms of self-defeating behavior are unseen and unconscious, which is why their existence is denied.”
“Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.”
“Running! If there's any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can't think of what it might be.”
