816 Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

I have beliefs, of course, like everyone-but I don’t always believe in them.

Like a flame is real enough, isn’t it, while it’s burning?-even if there’s a time it goes out?

The gym cat appears to those who will die. He is our totem.” This thought came to me a few weeks ago. I shared it with no one of course.

You love the life you’ve lived because it is yours.

She wasn’t in love but she would love him, if that would save her.

Laughter too depends upon memory – a memory of previous laughter. Dr.

You can think of your life as the mistakes you made that catch up with you finally.

It is utterly naive, futile, uninformed – to think that our species is exceptional. So designated to master the beasts of the Earth, as in the Book of Genesis!

And that’s the insult of it, how always it comes back to a woman being a “good” mother in the world’s eyes or a “bad” mother, how everything in a woman’s life is funneled through her body between her legs.