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e45ac9e
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None of the rest of my life figures here.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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322a9e5
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The person you love best, you share the world with. When that person's gone the world remains but it isn't the same thing, it's at a distance.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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255c9e5
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At least," Mother said, "that's the story Aunt Esther tells." "What do you mean?" I asked. "Isn't it true?" "Stories are never 'true'," Mother said. "But they may, almost by accident, contain 'truth'. Sometimes."
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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57a07a0
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while madness in individuals is relatively rare, it is virtually a prerequisite for a certain sort of political leader.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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8665084
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Maggots in corpses. He'd seen. Whitely churning, in the mouths of dead soldiers, where their noses had been, their ears and blasted-away jaws. Most of the soldiers had been men as young as he himself had been. Italians fallen after the Austrian offensive of 1918. You do not forget such sights. You do not un-see such sights. He himself had been wounded, but he had not died. The distinction was profound. Between what lived and what died the d..
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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32ee4f8
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Dorie herself was not very surprised, because a daydreamer is prepared for most things and in a way she had planned even this, though she had not guessed how it would come about.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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cb98b94
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the music was always in the background, like music at a church service; it was something to depend upon.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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8701254
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l ymknny ltwrT m` rjl l yhmh 'mry w'mr Tflty wHytn m`an, 'kthr mn htmmh bGryb ... l ymknny ltwrT m` rjl l yhmh n `sh 'w mt! yrmy bHyth mthl lzhr wk'n l qym@ lh
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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dc79703
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Because we are linked by blood and blood is memory without language.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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0278b5e
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I am made to think, not for the first time, that in my writing I have plunged ahead-head-on, heedlessly one might say-or 'fearlessly'- into my own future: this time of utter raw anguished loss. Though I may have had, since adolescence, a kind of intellectual/literary precocity, I had not experienced much;nor would I experience much until I was well into middle age-the illnesses and deaths of my parents, this unexpected death of my husband. ..
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shock
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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e10ce4b
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She had no existence, in herself. From earliest childhood she had believed this. Rather she was a reflecting surface, reflecting others' perception of her, and love of her.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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faf3bde
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Marianne laughed. But you can't disappoint me! I don't love you.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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899e47c
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I would know of myself through the witnessing and naming of others. As Jesus in the Gospels is only seen and spoken of and recorded by others. I would know my existence and the value of that existence through others' eyes, which I believed I could trust as I could not trust my own.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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5e3b510
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Literature, art, like civilization itself, are only accidents.
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literature
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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a87baf0
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The fact was that the woman lived the life she chose, she was happy in that life and it was no one's business after all but her own, my uncle's face darkening with blood as he spoke, my mother's fair fine skin pink as if smarting yet still I persisted, for I thought it such a horror, such a grief, yes and an embarrassment too, I said, "She's made a prison of this house, it's like she's a nun, it must be to punish herself," and my mother sai..
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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fdc74c1
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Know what 'celebrity' is kid? Being paid to bullshit the rest of your natural life.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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5f932e3
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The novel is the affliction for which only the novel is the cure.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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d18833b
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In that way you recall, suddenly, sharply, in daylight, a trace of a dream of the previous night--but even as you recall it, it begins to fade.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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fd2e56e
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her Quaker instincts led her to apologize for wrongs not her own to minimize conflict.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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97b1b17
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And we can read - there is always the prospect of escape, through books." "Books are not a means of 'escape', Meta! Books are a means of knowledge, and of learning how to cope with the future."
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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9832462
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Time is the enemy of lovers. Worse even than the frank light of day.
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age-difference
joyce-carol-oates
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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bb81403
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Since thirteen, she'd been preparing. She wasn't beautiful like these Bayhead Harbor girls, but it was surprising how men sometimes looked at her. More it was older men rather than guys her age, for some reason. [...] There were guys - older guys - she'd yearned for so frankly you could see it in her face.
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age-difference
joyce-carol-oates
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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a882fac
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There are some secrets so toxic you can't share. Especially if you love who it is you'd have to share with.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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450d09f
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An actress wants to be seen. An actress wants to be loved. By multitudes of people, not just one lone man.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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7f88997
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Acting is the loneliest profession I know.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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74630e7
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No way of life so entrenched will ever 'wither away' - it must be helped, with dynamite, if need be.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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0bf3254
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P.J. said, "That's true about any statement we make, isn't it? We never tell as much as we know." "Right! So We're lying. So almost every statement is a lie, we can't help it." "Yeah. But some statements are more lies than others."
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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2559e82
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A hero can be fool, he's still a hero.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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3f97fc2
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Alone,alone! It is a fact, you hear more acutely and you see and think most acutely,when you are alone. Alone, alone! But there is happiness in alone, if you believe you have chosen it.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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6f6074c
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The dilemma is, in the United States, each penniless citizen believes that, with luck, he might become a millionaire; and so doesn't want to put restraints on "robber barons"-he might become one one day!"
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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8cb6107
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Lawrence is the supreme poet of Eros. No recriminations, no reproaches, no guilt, no 'morality'. For what's 'morality' but a leash around the neck? A noose? What's 'morality' but what other people want you to do, for their own, selfish, unstated purposes?
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morality
eros
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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4f1a691
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No American sport or activity has been so consistently and so passionately under attack as boxing, for "moral" as we'll as other reasons. And no American sport evokes so ambivalent a response in its defenders: when asked the familiar question "How can you watch . . . ?" the boxing aficionado really has no answer. He can talk about boxing only with others like himself."
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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172687d
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In all marriages there is the imbalance: one who loves more than the other. One who licks wounds in secret, the rust-taste of blood.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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87a9597
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There are people, primarily women!--who are what I call 'conduits of emotion.' In their company, the half dead can come alive. They need not be beautiful women or girls. It's a matter of blood warmth. The integrity of the spirit." He turned the page of his sketch pad and began anew, whistling thinly through his teeth. "Thus an icy-cold soul, in the presence of one so blessed, can regain something of his lost self. Sometimes!"
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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7d2819c
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Then the noise faded and Legs squinted up at the sky, the moon so bright you'd never think it could be merely rock like the earth's common rock and lifeless, merely reflected light from an invisible sun and not a powerful living light of its own...
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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17c739a
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Like a turnip such a head could be blown away very easily. For where a man was weak, a woman has unmanned him. It would be a mercy to blow such a man away.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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115b521
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I learned you don't discover the evidence of any cause in its result.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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4bb98cb
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Oh, it's a terrible, cruel thing--first you're young, and that takes up such a long time you think it's forever, then suddenly you're not young, and you never get used to it--and, oh dear, there's just the one way out.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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1d11f22
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Impossible not to imagine the dead observing us. Our love for them a soft, shimmering gossamar that trails behind us.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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cbb0656
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It's a taboo subject. How the dead are betrayed by the living. We who are living--we who have survived--understand that our guilt is what links us to the dead. At all times we can hear them calling to us, a growing incredulity in their voices, You will not forget me -- will you? How can you forget me? I have no one but you.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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5d1114a
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Remembering backward is the easy thing. If you could remember forward, you could save yourself...
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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6f2501c
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As if whoever it was held that camera was her closest friend. Or maybe it was the camera that was her closest friend.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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b9081dc
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That glass sliver in the heart. Amid a fluttery-delicious Benzedrine rush, virtually every remark made to you is freighted with destiny, a sweet-painful stab in the heart. And Benzedrine and champagne, what a combination! The Blond Actress was only just discovering what everybody else in Hollywood knew.
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Joyce Carol Oates |
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85d11ca
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I live now for my work. I live for my work. I live only for my work. One day I will do work deserving of my talent & desire. One day. This I pledge. This I vow. I want you to love me for my work. But if you don't love me I can't continue my work. So please love me! - so I can continue my work. I am trapped here! I am trapped in this blond mannequin with the face. I can only breathe through that face! Those nostrils! That mouth! Help me to b..
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Joyce Carol Oates |