Anyone who teaches knows that you don't really experience a text until you've taught it, in loving detail, with an intelligent and responsive class.
Joyce Carol OatesHer wish to die was as pervasive as a dial tone: you lift the receiver, it's always there.
Joyce Carol Oatesthe music was always in the background, like music at a church service; it was something to depend upon.
Joyce Carol OatesI've always been so interested in personal history. I'm very fascinated by my parents' and my grandparents' generations. I seem to think that they had a resilience and an integrity that may be somewhat deficient in my own generation, and in subsequent generations as well, because America has been rather easy to live in since the Depression.
Joyce Carol Oates