45 Quotes by Joyce Carol Oates about writing
- Author Joyce Carol Oates
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I think all art comes out of conflict. When I write I am always looking for the dramatic kernel of an event, the junctures of people's lives when they go in one direction, not another.
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- Author Joyce Carol Oates
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It would be difficult for a writer of realism to avoid suggesting a political/moral perspective in his or her fiction. "Politics" per se is absent from my writing but there is usually a moral (if ironic) compass.
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- Author Joyce Carol Oates
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When poets - write about food it is usually celebratory. Food as the thing-in-itself, but also the thoughtful preparation of meals, the serving of meals, meals communally shared: a sense of the sacred in the profane.
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- Author Joyce Carol Oates
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If I'm writing, I'll say something metaphorical or approximate, whereas scientists are very precise.
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- Author Joyce Carol Oates
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It's not hard to write poorly. But to write something good, it has to be revised.
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- Author Joyce Carol Oates
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Don't try to anticipate an ideal reader - or any reader. He/she might exist - but is reading someone else.
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- Author Joyce Carol Oates
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Most people who are writers go through periods when they can't write.
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- Author Joyce Carol Oates
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Writing allows for fictitious voices - the voices of persons unlike myself - that might otherwise be muted.
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- Author Joyce Carol Oates
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One writes to memorialize, and to bring to life again that which has been lost.
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