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When I wrote 'We Were The Mulvaneys,' I was just old enough to look back upon my own family life and the lies of certain individuals close to me, with the detachment of time. I wanted to tell the truth about secrets: How much pain they give, yet how much relief, even happiness we may feel when at last the motive for secrecy has passed.

Joyce Carol Oates

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Joyce Carol Oates
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: June 16
Author
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Lockport
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Early publication can be a dubious blessing: we all know writers who would give anything not to have published their first book, and go about trying to buy up all existing copies.
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Tragedy is the highest form of art.
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I rarely write in my own voice except in book reviews and memoirs otherwise, I am writing in mediated voices, modulated in terms of the characters whom the voices express.
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The quiet people just do their work.
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The novel is perhaps the highest art form because it so closely resembles life: it is about human relationships. It's technique, page by page, resembles our technique of living day by day-a way of relating.
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To claim - to claim repeatedly - that you are innocent of what it is claimed by others that you have done, or might have done, or are in some quarters strongly suspected of having done, is never enough unless others, numerous others, will say it for you.
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To be true to life, a novel must have an ending that is inevitable given the specific personalities of the characters involved. The novelist must not impose an ending upon them.
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The heavenly light you admire is fossil-light, it's the unfathomably distant past you gaze into, stars long extinct
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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.
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The only people who claim that money is not important are people who have enough money so that they are relieved of the ugly burden of thinking about it.
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Art originates in play - in improvisation, experiment, and fantasy it remains forever, in its deepest instincts, playful and spontaneous, an exercise of the imagination analogous to the exercising of the physical body to no purpose other than ecstatic release.
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Why should I want what's good for me?' Beatrice asked him, smiling. 'Is that what you want for yourself - only what's good for you?
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A typical biography relying upon individuals' notorious memories and the anecdotes they've invented contains a high degree of fiction, yet is considered 'nonfiction.'
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I think all art comes out of conflict. When I write I am always looking for the dramatic kernel of an event, the junctures of people's lives when they go in one direction, not another.
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I compose most of my tweets with care, as if they were aphorisms - they are not usually dashed-off. Sometimes I'm surprised by the high, poetic quality of Twitter - it lends itself to a surreal sort of self-expression.
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The suicide does not play the game, does not observe the rules. He leaves the party too soon, and leaves the other guests painfully uncomfortable.
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Most people think that a widow is inhabiting some elegiac world of - it's like Mozart's 'Requiem Mass.' You know, it's very beautiful and elevated thoughts and some measure of dignity. I didn't have that experience at all. I had one pratfall after another.
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Art is the highest expression of the human spirit.
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If Shakespeare's great plays are variants of stories, even novels, you can see how each character is telling his story from his perspective each is vying with the others for dominance, but in the end, in tragedy, most of these voices will die, to be replaced by the yet more vigorous voice of a younger generation.
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The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to overcome doubt.
Joyce Carol Oates