Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oatesis an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over 40 novels, as well as a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them, two O. Henry Awards, and the National Humanities Medal. Her novels Black Water, What I Lived For, Blonde, and short story collections The Wheel of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 June 1938
CityLockport, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Joyce Carol Oates quotes about
Like most people, I can be very easily hurt.
Boxing is rough. Even if you win, you get hurt.
Of our hurts we make monuments of survival. If we survive.
A mouth of no distinction but well practiced, before I entered my teens, in irony. For what is irony but the repository of hurt? And what is hurt but the repository of hope?
For what is delusion but the prelude to hurt. And what is hurt but the prelude to rage.
I'm drawn to failure. I feel like I'm contending with it constantly in my own life.
In 'We Were the Mulvaneys,' animals are almost as important as people. I wanted to show the tenderness in our relationships with cats, dogs, and horses. Especially cats.
Dust jackets are always something of an enigma to me.
I should say, one of the things about being a widow or a widower, you really, really need a sense of humor, because everything's going to fall apart.
A writer can't subtract or excise any of his/her past because doing so would erase the work produced during that time.
Primarily, 'Black Girl/White Girl' is the story of two very different, yet somehow 'fated' girls; for Genna, her 'friendship' with Minette is the most haunting of her life, though it is one-sided and ends in tragedy.
I am concerned with only one thing, the moral and social conditions of my generation.
The most common misperception about me is that I write fast. I just write often. Every hour that I can.
Yes, 'Black Girl/White Girl' might be described as a 'coming-of-age' novel, at least for the survivor Genna. It is also intended as a comment on race relations in America more generally: we are 'roommates' with one another, but how well do we know one another?