Joyce Carol Oates Quotes & Sayings (Page 8)

“Life and people are complex. A writer as an artist doesn't have the personality of a politician. We don't see the world that simply.”

“If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space.”

“You need so much energy and encouragement to write that if someone says something negative, some of that energy goes.”

“Before you can write a novel you have to have a number of ideas that come together. One idea is not enough.”

“I can't say I was a very successful sorority girl.”

“The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.”

“Productivity is a relative matter. And it's really insignificant: What is ultimately important is a writer's strongest books.”

“I consider tragedy the highest form of art.”

“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.”

“I was writing novels in high school and apprenticed myself in a way both to Faulkner and to Hemingway.”