Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

Writing is a solitary occupation, and one of its hazards is loneliness. But an advantage of loneliness is privacy, autonomy and freedom.

Joyce Carol Oates

• Writing
• Freedom
• Loneliness

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• The beauty of 'The Hunger Games' and also 'Game of Thrones,' in fairness, both projects have really complex, three-dimensional, contradictory, strong women... The writing of female characters is extraordinary and equal to the men.

  

  Natalie Dormer
  • Men
  • Writing
  • Women

• It is well known that my husband and Lady Thatcher enjoyed a very special relationship as leaders of their respective countries during one of the most difficult and pivotal periods in modern history. Ronnie and Margaret were political soul mates, committed to freedom and resolved to end Communism.

  

  Nancy Reagan
  • History
  • Soul
  • Political

• We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.

  

  Barack Obama
  • People
  • Freedom
  • Commitment

• I think you have to learn for yourself how to write. I'm slightly mystified by creative writing courses - God love them - because I can't understand how you can explain a process that I find so baffling.

  

  Kate Atkinson
  • God
  • Writing
  • Love

• When you start writing about the stuff that is the central experience of your own life, you can talk about whatever you want, in whatever way you want.

  

  Salman Rushdie
  • Life
  • Writing
  • Experience

• Black people were very angry with me for writing the book. A lot of people didn't believe me, or didn't want to believe me, and that used to really bother me. It was a very painful and difficult time.

  

  LaToya Jackson
  • People
  • Time
  • Believe

• The Polish freedom movement of 1968 lost its confrontation with police violence; the Prague Spring was crushed by the armies of five Warsaw Pact members. But in both countries, 1968 gave birth to a new political consciousness.

  

  Adam Michnik
  • Political
  • Freedom
  • Lost

• Because I find writing painful, I try to get it over with as fast as possible. But I write every day, or I lose the thread.

  

  Patrick Modiano
  • Writing
  • Day
  • Everyday

• When you're devoted to a greater freedom in the world, you're willing to compromise something you love.

  

  Nazanin Boniadi
  • World
  • Love
  • Freedom

• The writing that feels the best to me, I experience sometimes, is a kind of weirdly deep listening - like, it feels like if you just listen hard enough, the next sentence will tell you what it needs to be.

  

  Garth Risk Hallberg
  • Writing
  • Experience
  • Best

• America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

  

  Abraham Lincoln
  • America
  • Freedom
  • Lose

• I was already writing 'The Lost Symbol' when I started to realize 'The Da Vinci Code' would be big. The thing that happened to me and must happen to any writer who's had success is that I temporarily became very self-aware.

  

  Dan Brown
  • Writing
  • Success
  • Lost

• Our port facilities should have the freedom to levy a market-based container fee which will provide new revenue and make our system more equitable to the American taxpayer and American manufacturers.

  

  Dana Rohrabacher
  • American
  • Freedom
  • System

• Local markets for literary fiction remain underdeveloped; the metropolis often holds out the only real possibility of a professional writing career.

  

  Pankaj Mishra
  • Writing
  • Real
  • Career

• I did a lot of my writing as though I was an academic, doing some piece of research as perfectly as possible.

  

  A. S. Byatt
  • Writing
  • Doing
  • Research

• I'm not happy when I'm writing, but I'm more unhappy when I'm not.

  

  Fannie Hurst
  • Writing
  • Happy
  • Unhappy

• Many of Reagan's listeners thought he was dreaming. But Reagan had faith in freedom. He knew that communism, although militarily powerful, was ideologically dead. He knew what our Founders knew: that, in a truly legitimate government, power does not come out of the barrel of a gun, but only from the consent of the people.

  

  Sam Brownback
  • People
  • Power
  • Freedom

• In my mind, the plays I was writing were extreme examples of art for art's sake. I didn't necessarily think that other people would love them, though I thought they probably would.

  

  Wallace Shawn
  • People
  • Writing
  • Mind

• Those books of mine that are remunerative - I'm not talking about poetry here - take years to write, and I am never sure they'll be successful. So writing is a risk in more senses than one.

  

  Vikram Seth
  • Writing
  • Poetry
  • Risk

• I think we're getting to the point where everyone's getting fat and everyone's getting allergic, or claims to be allergic to something and people can't walk from their front door to their car without a bottle of water in their hand because they have to hydrate every three and half steps.

  

  Adam Carolla
  • People
  • Hand
  • Water

• Mathematics, in the development of its ideas, has only to take account of the immanent reality of its concepts and has absolutely no obligation to examine their transient reality.

  

  Georg Cantor
  • Reality

• I'm fighting hard to make the world a better place, and you can, too. Get involved with your community, be a leader, set an example, be passionate, be your best.

  

  Gabrielle Giffords
  • World
  • Community
  • Best

• People remain unknowable to us, even people that we're very close to. And I think the same goes for our own selves.

  

  Katie Kitamura
  • People

• Writing is a solitary occupation, and one of its hazards is loneliness. But an advantage of loneliness is privacy, autonomy and freedom.

  

  Joyce Carol Oates
  • Writing
  • Freedom
  • Loneliness