Top 135 Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

About Joyce Carol Oates

These are some quotes by American author Joyce Carol Oates Novelist, who was born on June 16, 1938.

Life and people are complex. A writer as an artist doesn't have the personality of a politician. We don't see the world that simply.

Life and people are complex. A writer as an artist doesn't have the personality of a politician. We don't see the world that simply.

Joyce Carol Oates

The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.

The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.

Joyce Carol Oates

When people say there is too much violence in my books, what they are saying is there is too much reality in life.

When people say there is too much violence in my books, what they are saying is there is too much reality in life.

Joyce Carol Oates

When I complete a novel I set it aside, and begin work on short stories, and eventually another long work. When I complete that novel I return to the earlier novel and rewrite much of it. In the meantime the second novel lies in a desk drawer.

Joyce Carol Oates

I was writing novels in high school and apprenticed myself in a way both to Faulkner and to Hemingway.

I was writing novels in high school and apprenticed myself in a way both to Faulkner and to Hemingway.

Joyce Carol Oates

Anyone who teaches knows that you don't really experience a text until you've taught it, in loving detail, with an intelligent and responsive class.

Anyone who teaches knows that you don't really experience a text until you've taught it, in loving detail, with an intelligent and responsive class.

Joyce Carol Oates

To be Jewish is to be specifically identified with a history. And if you're not aware of that when you're a child, the whole tradition is lost.

To be Jewish is to be specifically identified with a history. And if you're not aware of that when you're a child, the whole tradition is lost.

Joyce Carol Oates

Honorary degrees and lifetime achievement awards are very encouraging. I know that it might sound strange that a writer who has published many books still needs encouragement, but this is true.

Honorary degrees and lifetime achievement awards are very encouraging. I know that it might sound strange that a writer who has published many books still needs encouragement, but this is true.

Joyce Carol Oates

I consider tragedy the highest form of art.

I consider tragedy the highest form of art.

Joyce Carol Oates

'The Accursed' is very much a novel about social injustice as the consequence of the terrible, tragic division of classes - the exploitation not only of poor and immigrant workers but of their young children in factories and mills - and as the consequence of race hatred in the aftermath of the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves.

Joyce Carol Oates

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