816 Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

I was trying not to be happy, hopeful. I did not believe I deserved happiness or even hope, if you knew my soul.

Writing! The activity for which the only adequate bribe is the possibility of suicide, one day.

She thought that this man was her savior, that he had come to her at a time in her life when her life demanded completion, an end, a permanent fixing of all that was troubled and shifting and deadly. And yet it was absurd to think this. No person could save another. So she drew back from him and released him.

I don't believe in predestination - except for genetic predilections.

From Mother you will inherit the belief that you can journey to your fate, there's a place to be located on a map that's destiny. If only you can get there. If it isn't too late. If no one stops you.

Later, her first intense, serious love affair, yes then she'd lost something more tangible, if undefinable: her heart? her independence? her control of, definition of, self? That first true loss, the furious bafflement of it. And never again quite so assured, confident.

Ambitious, absorbing, and poignantly moving.

How mysterious it is, to be in love. For you can be in love with one who knows nothing of you. Perhpas our greatest happinesses spring from such longings-being in love with one who is oblivious of you.

Novels begin, not on the page, but in meditation and day-dreaming - In thinking, not writing.