We are stimulated to emotional response, not by works that confirm our sense of the world, but by works that challenge it.
Joyce Carol OatesI was writing novels in high school and apprenticed myself in a way both to Faulkner and to Hemingway.
Joyce Carol OatesWriters and artists never pay attention to advice given by their elders, quite rightly. The only worthwhile advice is the most general: Keep trying, don't give up, don't be discouraged, don't pay attention to detractors. Everyone knows this.
Joyce Carol OatesI believe that art is the highest expression of the human spirit. I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely finite and ephemeral; to participate in something mysterious and communal called 'culture' - and that this yearning is as strong in our species as the yearning to reproduce the species.
Joyce Carol Oates