Nothing is accidental in the universe – this is one of my Laws of Physics – except the entire universe itself, which is Pure Accident, pure divinity. Joyce Carol Oates Read Quote
Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions. Joyce Carol Oates Read Quote
When you are writing literary writing, you are communicating something subtextual with emotions and poetry. The prose has to have a voice; it’s not just typing. It takes a while to get that voice. Joyce Carol Oates Read Quote
When people say there is too much violence in my books, what they are saying is there is too much reality in life. Joyce Carol Oates Read Quote
My grandmother could never have written a memoir, so ‘The Gravedigger’s Daughter’ is a homage to her life, and to the lives of other young women of her generation, which are so rarely articulated. Joyce Carol Oates Read Quote
When I was very little, four or five, I did comic strip drawings, so my first novel had no words. I couldn’t write and thought adult handwriting was a mysterious scribble. When I was 14, my grandmother gave me a typewriter and I started writing in a different way. Joyce Carol Oates Read Quote
Obviously the imagination is fueled by emotions beyond the control of the conscious mind. Joyce Carol Oates Read Quote