816 Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

Relief is happiness for those who, otherwise, would have no happiness.

I can’t say I was a very successful sorority girl.

Messes are made by people who want but don’t know what they want, let alone how to get it.

On their own, your eyes did not naturally discover the sky.

Unfamiliar places could be more dangerous than familiar places, unexpectedly. The boy had been discovering that an unfamiliar place was more easily “haunted” than a familiar place simply because there was less there to distract the memory.

And the thought consoled me, as it does now: everything you believe you have imagined is real. You have only to outlive it.

It’s not hard to write poorly. But to write something good, it has to be revised.

The fundamental truth of my life whether in fact it was truth or a burlesque of truth: when a man wants you, you’re safe.

Nor do I like being told upsetting news – unless there is a good reason. I can’t help but feel that there is an element of cruelty, if not sadism, in friends telling one another upsetting things for no reason except to observe their reactions.