Old women snore violently. They are like bodies into which bizarre animals have crept at night; the animals are vicious, bawdy, noisy. How they snore! There is no shame to their snoring. Old women turn into old men. Joyce Carol Oates
If food is poetry, is not poetry also food? Joyce Carol Oates
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. Joyce Carol Oates
Love commingled with hate is more powerful than love. Or hate. Joyce Carol Oates
When you’re 50 you start thinking about things you haven’t thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity – but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. Joyce Carol Oates
Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing. Joyce Carol Oates
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
The worst cynicism: a belief in luck. Joyce Carol Oates
The use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence. Joyce Carol Oates
Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost. Joyce Carol Oates
Boxing has become America’s tragic theater. Joyce Carol Oates
Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality. Joyce Carol Oates
Nothing is accidental in the universe – this is one of my Laws of Physics – except the entire universe itself, which is Pure Accident. Joyce Carol Oates