Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oatesis an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over 40 novels, as well as a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them, two O. Henry Awards, and the National Humanities Medal. Her novels Black Water, What I Lived For, Blonde, and short story collections The Wheel of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 June 1938
CityLockport, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Her problem wasn't she was a dumb blonde, it was she wasn't a blonde and she wasn't dumb.
the music was always in the background, like music at a church service; it was something to depend upon.
...failure is a human condition, not victory over odds; for each Hellen Keller who triumphs, there are tens of millions who fail, mute and deaf and insensate as vegetables tossed upon a vast garbage pile to rot.
What you call your personality, you know? --it's not like actual bones, or teeth, something solid. It's more like a flame. A flame can be upright, and a flame can flicker in the wind, a flame can be extinguished so there's no sign of it, like it had never been.
Our house is made of glass... and our lives are made of glass; and there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves.
Detroit, my 'great' subject, made me the person I am, consequently the writer I am - for better or worse.
I have so many favorite writers, it's very hard to select a few... of classic writers, I have always admired Emily Dickinson and Henry David Thoreau.
I was brought up to be sympathetic toward others.
The body can't distinguish between cleansing and punishing for the body is ignorant, and mute besides.
I want to tell you that I love you I want to tell you that I love you I want to tell you that I love I love I love I love but you do not.
We are the species that clamors to be lied to.
Every scar in my face is worth it.
In a family, what isn't spoken is what you listen for. But the noise of a family is to drown it out.
Childhood is the province of the imagination and when I immerse myself in it, I re-create it as it was, as it could have been, as I wanted - and didn't want - it to be.