816 Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

That is a blessing of bad dreams, they are quickly forgotten.

No way of life so entrenched will ever 'wither away' - it must be helped, with dynamite, if need be.

A man may accommodate himself to a disagreeable situation in a few months. The intolerable may take a little longer.

Since thirteen, she’d been preparing. She wasn’t beautiful like these Bayhead Harbor girls, but it was surprising how men sometimes looked at her. More it was older men rather than guys her age, for some reason. […] There were guys - older guys - she’d yearned for so frankly you could see it in her face.

Time is the enemy of lovers. Worse even than the frank light of day.

NO KISS FORGOTTEN; it resides in the memory as in the flesh, and so Katya many times felt the press of Marcus Kidder’s warm mouth on hers in the days and especially in the nights following. And her heartbeat quickened in protest: How could you! Kiss him! That old man! Kiss him! Let him put his arms around you ad kiss you and kiss him back! The old man’s mouth and Katya Spivak’s mouth! How could you.

If this was a flirtation — and it felt like a flirtation — it was like no other flirtation in Katya’s experience: with a man old enough to be her grandfather?

... her Quaker instincts led her to apologize for wrongs not her own to minimize conflict.

... while madness in individuals is relatively rare, it is virtually a prerequisite for a certain sort of political leader.