Joyce Carol Oates

Nothing is accidental in the universe - this is one of my Laws of Physics - except the entire universe itself, which is Pure Accident, pure divinity.

I should say, one of the things about being a widow or a widower, you really, really need a sense of humor, because everything's going to fall apart.

It seems disingenuous to ask a writer why she, or he, is writing about a violent subject when the world and history are filled with violence.

Yes, there are lots of individual exceptions. But no one has ever done a study about voting intention without ascertaining that the biggest determining factor is your income and your wealth.

I'll be writing essays long after I've stopped writing fiction. There is this unusually broad range in the non-fiction, but if you look at what I'm capable of as a novelist, I'm more limited.

Color is a very critical thing. I've found that architects don't like colors. Engineers too. And so somebody has to stand in. Because this is the finish of it. It is the emotional part of a structure.