“ So we invent reasons for the unreasonable. We are rationalists of the irrational. It Joyce Carol Oates
“ She would become, through the years, a woman who expected the worst, to relieve herself of the anxiety of hope. She would become a woman of calm, fatalistic principles, anticipating her life with the… Joyce Carol Oates
“ Of all miracles, none is more daunting than normal. To be—to become—normal. This gift seemingly so ordinary is not a gift given to all who seek it. Joyce Carol Oates
“ If marriage is a masquerade, there is the very real danger that masks may slip. The Joyce Carol Oates
“ I was trying not to be happy, hopeful. I did not believe I deserved happiness or even hope, if you knew my soul. Joyce Carol Oates
“ How exhausted I am suddenly!—though this has been Ray’s best day in the hospital so far, and we are feeling—almost—exhilarated. Joyce Carol Oates
“ Exotic: meaning you're desired.For madness is seductive, sexy. Female madness.So long as the female is reasonably young and attractive. Joyce Carol Oates
“ Even if I seemed to remember, I could not know. For just to remember something is not to know if it really happened. That is a primary fact of the inner life, the most difficult fact with which we mus… Joyce Carol Oates
“ Being a grand-kid, you can so easily regress. All the ages you ever were are all recalled by the grandparent in a shimmery love-haze, like those blurred faces on tv, in which identities have been disg… Joyce Carol Oates
“ Always, it was claimed of her, she was strong and she was capable. You are not loved for being strong and capable if you are a female but if you are a female and you are strong and capable you will ma… Joyce Carol Oates
“ Alone, alone! Long she would recall the strangeness of the word, an echo aerated by melancholy vowels—alone. AT Joyce Carol Oates
“ For, though the instinct to fight and to kill is surely qualified by one’s personal courage, the instinct to watch others fight and kill is evidently inborn. When the boxing fan shouts, ‘Kill him! Kil… Joyce Carol Oates
“ Her Quaker instincts led her to apologize for wrongs not her own to minimize conflict. Joyce Carol Oates
“ You're an insomniac, you tell yourself: there are profound truths revealed only to the insomniac by night like those phosphorescent minerals veined and glimmering in the dark but coarse and ordinary o… Joyce Carol Oates
