She examined me, she looked at me critically and said, "Why are you trying to starve yourself?" To keep myself from feeling love, from feeling lust, from feeling anything at all.
Joyce Carol OatesAnd what is 'art'? - a firestorm rushing through Time, arising from no visible source and conforming to no principles of logic or causality.
Joyce Carol OatesWriting is a consequence of having been 'haunted' by material. Why this is, no one knows.
Joyce Carol OatesAfter my husband died, I could not write much - I could not concentrate. I was too exhausted most of the time even to contemplate writing. But I did take notes - not for fiction, but for a journal, or diary, of this terrible time. I did not think that I would ever survive this interlude.
Joyce Carol Oates