Quotes from Joyce Carol Oates

No I don't, no I reject that I reject you, I am not your sister, I am not your twin, I am not you.

evil' is after all a relative term: there being a minor and pragmatical sort, to be disposed of as one swats a fly, and a vast, all-encompassing, one might say universal sort, that must be halted by any means at hand.

happened to you! what happened

You wear out. You see too much. Every breath hurts. The

Beyond Boothbay, beyond the fifth of July...?

The strangeness of Time. Not in its passing, which can seem infinite, like a tunnel whose end you can't see, whose beginning you've forgotten, but in the sudden realization that something finite has passed, and is irretrievable.

Marianne's face was streaked with tears that glistened like acid and her skin was drained of color and she could not bring herself to look at Dr. Oakley behind his desk, nor at Corrine.

First thing is when your on Death Row long enough you don't ask WHO AM I because you have learnt nobody would be there anyway.

She wasn't in love but she would love him, if that would save her. She'd never loved any man, she was a good girl but she would love that man if it would save her.

Imagine que en el mismo espacio que ocupa usted con su cuerpo verdadero, existe otro cuerpo, el cuerpo imaginario de su personaje, que usted ha creado en su mente. MICHAEL CHEKHOV

if she petted or fed one animal in the presence of others, she must pet and feed them all. It was what Jesus would have done had He lived intimately with animals.

Ariah struck suddenly at her face with both fists. She wanted to pummel, blacken her eyes that had seen too much.

For the past few days, she had been praying and meditating upon what to do and she had decided she must do nothing, for it was she who had made the mistake and not the boy and she must not bear witness against him.

You don't have to understand why anything that has happened to you has happened nor do you even have to understand what it is that has happened. You have only to live with the remains. A

Sunny wintry days. The idyll of (inner) loneliness. What am I going to do with my life?

Yet: what could be proven against Zachary Lundt, with no witness except Marianne? Her words against his? Zachary's friends would rally around him, she knew. She was not bitter, but she knew. It was clear to her, logical as a chess game in which you see your opponent's devastating moves to come, but are helpless to prevent them.

you cried, they tried to comfort you. But if you were stony faced they let you alone.

Della riendo, diciendo entre jadeos: «¿De qué vale ser una perdida y una puta si a los treinta años no tienes nada?». Y a Norma Jeane le faltaban

Aún resuena en su interior, en lo más hondo de su matriz, el oscuro placer de la penetración. Como un lamento.

Everything is entirely in Nature, and Nature is entire in everything. She has her center in every brute. —SCHOPENHAUER The

The secret is to scale one's ambitions precisely to fit one's talent, Mr Lesnovich told Enid. His manner as always was grave, vaguely censorious. That is the key to happiness.

Ante tus enemigos, aconsejaba el padre de Rebecca, es tan prudente ocultar tu inteligencia como esconder tus debilidades.

Happiness is being in one place. The picture fixes you in one place.

Annabel was devoutly religious. She could not have clearly stated what set her Presbyterian faith apart from other Protestant faiths, or, except in the most obvious terms, how it was to be distinguished from Roman Catholicism, an old and much-feared enemy;