816 Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

Criticism is, for me, like essay writing, a wonderful way of relaxation; it doesn't require a heightened and mediated voice, like prose fiction, but rather a calm, rational, even conversational voice.

A diverse and lively collection, the highest art of the interview.

Beauty is a question of optics. All sight is illusion.

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.

There is something thrilling in the mimesis of life's surprising unfolding.

Self-criticism, like self-administered brain surgery, is perhaps not a good idea. Can the 'self' see the 'self' with any objectivity?

When a marriage ends, who is left to understand it?

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.

The third man in the ring makes boxing possible.