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
Joyce Carol Oates quotes about
Reading yields a wish to write, I think, except if the reading is dull and uninspiring.
That is the mystery: Reading Henry James can yield prose that is contrary to James, yet inspired by him. Who can understand this?
My first love was reading, which inspired me to write.
I am more or less reading all the time.
These novels [Zombie, My Sister, My Love] are so special to me. [I don't expect that they will have nearly the same significance to anyone else.] They represent a kind of fiction I would love to pursue more or less constantly, but dare not.
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.
I'm drawn to failure. I feel like I'm contending with it constantly in my own life.
A writer can't subtract or excise any of his/her past because doing so would erase the work produced during that time.
Each genre exerts a considerable spell, as a kind of "form" to be filled, as a Shakespearean sonnet is filled.
I am concerned with only one thing, the moral and social conditions of my generation.
I feel a terrible loss when I (eventually must) complete a work of fiction.
It is important for me to discover the ideal title, for without this title the story or novel isn't quite in focus.
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.
It's always a challenge to discover the most effective first sentence, and the most effective final sentence, in a chapter for instance, and in the book as a whole.