Joyce Carol Oates

If food is poetry, is not poetry also food? ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#food #poetry

The challenge is to resist circumstances. Any idiot can be happy in a happy place, but moral courage is required to be happy in a hellhole. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#life #philosophy #courage

It isn't the subjects we write about but the seriousness and subtlety of our expression that determines the worth of or effort. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#inspiration #writing-life #inspirational

This was before voice mail, recorded phone messages you can't escape. Life was easier then. You just didn't pick up the phone. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#life #nostalgia #technology #telephone #communication

Be daring, take on anything. Don’t labor over little cameo works in which every word is to be perfect. Technique holds a reader from sentence to sentence, but only content will stay in his mind. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#writing-advice

The distinction between "assistant" and intern" is a simple one: assistants are paid, interns are not. But of course interns are paid, in experience. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#money #work #experience

Unbidden, Unwelcome, Yet unable to resist, I entered a stranger's life ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#life

Hating "The Great Gatsby" (the novel) is like spitting into the Grand Canyon. It will not be going away anytime soon, but you will be. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#twitter #twitter

A lawyer is basically a mouth, like a shark is a mouth attached to a long gut. The business of lawyers is to talk, to interrupt one another, and to devour each other if possible. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#business

Because there is a wish in the heart of mankind to be distracted and confused. Truth is but one attraction, and not always the most powerful ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#love