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I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card…and somehow the activity of writing changes everything.

Joyce Carol Oates

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Joyce Carol Oates
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: June 16
Author
Autobiographer
Diarist
Essayist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Professor
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Lockport
New York
Everything
Cards
Writing
Somehow
Changes
Begin
Card
Activity
Exhausted
Playing
Utterly
Felt
Thin
Soul
Forced

More quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

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'A Fair Maiden' existed in notes and sketches for perhaps a year. When I traveled, I would take along with me my folder of notes - 'ideas for stories.' Eventually, I began to write it and wrote it fairly swiftly - in perhaps two months of fairly intense writing and rewriting. Most of my time writing is really re-writing.
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Art is the highest expression of the human spirit.
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Why is humanism not the preeminent belief of humankind?
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Love commingled with hate is more powerful than love. Or hate.
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Before I undertake a lengthy project, I have usually given much thought to it over a period of years. My files are filled with likely subjects - which perhaps, one day, I will develop.
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I used to think getting old was about vanity but actually it's about losing people you love.
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The quiet people just do their work.
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To choose the ideal voice for a character is to give a character an ardent and vivid life, to allow him or her to speak, rather than speaking for them, in an older style of omniscient narration.
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The denial of language is a suicidal one and we pay for it with our own lives.
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A man will reveal his true self, or so it seems, on the tennis court.
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I am what would be called a 'mainstream feminist,' not a radical feminist.
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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.
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It's one of those secrets that's embarrassing to acknowledge, but we do love our students.
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It must happen to everyone. The last time you make love, you can't know it will be the last.
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A daydreamer is prepared for most things.
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Writers and artists never pay attention to advice given by their elders, quite rightly. The only worthwhile advice is the most general: Keep trying, don't give up, don't be discouraged, don't pay attention to detractors. Everyone knows this.
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Never be ashamed of your subject, and of your passion for your subject.
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I turn down invitations to do things for money. I have almost no interest in making money. Actually, I've acquired a fair amount of money that I will never live to spend. So earning money, in a way, depresses me, because I feel it's just piling up.
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Great art is cathartic it is always moral.
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If I'm writing, I'll say something metaphorical or approximate, whereas scientists are very precise.
Joyce Carol Oates