Joyce Carol Oates citations

“A ce moment-là inconnu, anonyme, l'individu qui devait se jeter dans les Horseshoe Falls apparut au gardien du pont suspendu de Goat Island vers 6h15 du matin. Il serait le premier visiteur de la journée.

Si j'ai compris tout de suite ? Pas vraiment. Mais avec le recul, oui, j'aurais dû savoir. J'aurais peut-être pu le sauver.”

“The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt.”

“I never change, I simply become more myself.”

“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.”

“Prose — it might be speculated — is discourse; poetry ellipsis.”

“I think that art is the commemoration of life in its variety.”

“My theory is that literature is essential to society in the way that dreams are essential to our lives.”

“We all have numerous identities that shift with circumstances.”

“The best revenge is living well without you.”

“The worst thing: to give yourself away in exchange for not enough love.”

“Loneliness is like starvation: you don't realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.”

“The strangeness of Time. Not in its passing, which can seem infinite, like a tunnel whose end you can't see, whose beginning you've forgotten, but in the sudden realization that something finite, has passed, and is irretrievable.”

“See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be”

“In love there are two things - bodies and words.”

“A daydreamer is prepared for most things.”

“My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.”

“Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.”

“And this is the forbidden truth, the unspeakable taboo - that evil is not always repellent but frequently attractive; that it has the power to make of us not simply victims, as nature and accident do, but active accomplices.”

“We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”

“Keeing busy" is the remedy for all the ills in America. It's also the means by which the creative impulse is destroyed.”

“Every scar in my face is worth it.”

“Writing is a consequence of having been 'haunted' by material. Why this is, no one knows.”

“I had forgotten that time wasn't fixed like concrete but in fact was fluid as sand, or water. I had forgotten that even misery can end.”

“If I try to summon back his face, the sound of his voice, and the sensation in my stomach like a key turning in a lock when he touched me, I lose everything.”

“She wasn't in love but she would love him, if that would save her.”

“Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.”

“I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card…and somehow the activity of writing changes everything.”

“Death is just the last scene of the last act.”

“Of our hurts we make monuments of survival. If we survive.”

“My self is all to me. I don't have any need of you.”