Impossible not to imagine the dead observing us. Our love for them a soft, shimmering gossamar that trails behind us.

Don't try to anticipate an ideal reader - or any reader. He/she might exist - but is reading someone else.

People might be surprised to know how much I throw away. For every page I publish, I throw 10 pages away.

People have libraries at home, they have bookshelves, they have CDs. And they sort of try, people try to bring great artists into their lives, into their physical houses and sort of live with portions of them. But they're not really deeply engaging with them.

I don't teach literature from my perspective as 'Joyce Carol Oates.' I try to teach fiction from the perspective of each writer. If I'm teaching a story by Hemingway, my endeavor is to present the story that Hemingway wrote in its fullest realization.

When a marriage ends, who is left to understand it?

[Emily] Dickinson, our supreme poet of inwardness.