We are stimulated to emotional response, not by works that confirm our sense of the world, but by works that challenge it. Joyce Carol Oates Read Quote
I have so many favorite writers, it’s very hard to select a few… of classic writers, I have always admired Emily Dickinson and Henry David Thoreau. Joyce Carol Oates Read Quote
Even as a young child, I was a lover of books and of the spaces in which, as indeed in a sacred temple, books might safely reside. Joyce Carol Oates Read Quote
I wrote a novel called ‘Blonde,’ which is about Norma Jean Baker, who becomes Marilyn Monroe, which I called a fictitious biography. That uses the material as if it were myth – that Marilyn Monroe is like this mythical figure in our culture. Joyce Carol Oates Read Quote
My reputation for writing quickly and effortlessly notwithstanding, I am strongly in favor of intelligent, even fastidious revision, which is, or certainly should be, an art in itself. Joyce Carol Oates Read Quote
