“ You don’t understand! Gilbert turned his back on me, but he wouldn’t have turned his back on God. Ariah Joyce Carol Oates
“ What madness! Yet she would do it, if she could force herself. She'd become, she believed, a stronger person: a willful, resolute. Like the man who adored her, reckless. Joyce Carol Oates
“ Você pode fingir ser quase tudo que não é, há pouquíssimas coisas que de fato se pode ser. Joyce Carol Oates
“ Traição é uma coisa dolorosa. Traição é a ferida mais profunda. Traição é o que resta do amor depois que o amor acaba. Joyce Carol Oates
“ To claim - to claim repeatedly - that you are innocent of what it is claimed by others that you have done, or might have done, or are in some quarters strongly suspected of having done, is never enoug… Joyce Carol Oates
“ Paradox: how do we know what we have failed to see because we have no language to express it, thus we cannot know that we have failed to see it. Joyce Carol Oates
“ One thing it was not: love at first sight. He didn’t believe in such. He wasn’t a believer in romance, sentimental coincidences, meanings snatched out of the air. He certainly didn’t believe in destin… Joyce Carol Oates
“ Nor do I like being told upsetting news—unless there is a good reason. I can’t help but feel that there is an element of cruelty, if not sadism, in friends telling one another upsetting things for no… Joyce Carol Oates
“ No way of life so entrenched will ever 'wither away' - it must be helped, with dynamite, if need be. Joyce Carol Oates
“ Never can you climb over this wall, you’re not strong enough; girls aren’t strong enough; girls aren’t big enough; your body is fragile and breakable, like a doll; your body is a doll; your body is fo… Joyce Carol Oates
“ Loving Felix she’d acquired from him a certain arrogance, telling so many lies she’d acquired a zest for lies and quite preferred them to the truth. For a lie had to be invented, truth was common prop… Joyce Carol Oates
“ Like the philosophy credited to Jack Dempsey: The more punches a man takes, the closer he is to the end. Because a man has only a fixed number of punches he can take in his lifetime. Pa? Joyce Carol Oates
“ Like editing, gardening requires infinite patience; it requires an essential selflessness, and optimism. Joyce Carol Oates
“ Language is the instrument in all cases and can language be trusted?If it were not for language, could we lie? Joyce Carol Oates
“ I would know of myself through the witnessing and naming of others. As Jesus in the Gospels is only seen and spoken of and recorded by others. I would know my existence and the value of that existence… Joyce Carol Oates
“ He thinks: He could give up. He could admit defeat. But he will not admit defeat. He is still alive. Joyce Carol Oates
“ Dorie herself was not very surprised, because a daydreamer is prepared for most things and in a way she had planned even this, though she had not guessed how it would come about. Joyce Carol Oates
“ Lionel turned his thoughts eagerly inward, to discover that inward was perilous, too; his soul was a sort of curved reflective surface that distorts, as in a funhouse mirror, the face of one peering i… Joyce Carol Oates
“ Unless it was enough for these worshipers to bask in the knowledge that, though invisible to them and in every way inaccessible to them, the swarthy handsome Ex-Athlete and the beautiful Blond Actress… Joyce Carol Oates
“ Without anyone to talk to, a person is not quite real. Sounds are very important - we are like bats tapping at each other with sounds, making sure there is someone there, groping along. Sounds. Syllab… Joyce Carol Oates
