816 Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

I don't think that any 'ism' is higher than literature or art. So I'm a formalist. I greatly honor and respect the form of a work.

The brain is a muscle of busy hills, the struggle of unthought things with things eternally thought.

The great happiness in life in creativity belongs to amateurs.

I am more or less reading all the time.

Of the widow's countless death-duties there is really just one that matters: on the first anniversary of her husband's death the widow should think I kept myself alive.

My first love was reading, which inspired me to write.

The secret of being a writer: not to expect others to value what you've done as you value it. Not to expect anyone else to perceive in it the emotions you have invested in it. Once this is understood, all will be well.

I am the presence standing here at this juncture of Time & Space- who else?

We are the species that clamors to be lied to.