Joyce Carol Oates Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Reading, Mean

  Joyce Carol Oates (1989). “(Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities”, Plume

• When people say there is too much violence in my books, what they are saying is there is too much reality in life.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Reality, People

  New York Times, July 27, 1980.

• Even as a young child, I was a lover of books and of the spaces in which, as indeed in a sacred temple, books might safely reside.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Children, Book, Space

• Productivity is a relative matter. And it's really insignificant: What is ultimately important is a writer's strongest books. It may be the case that we all must write many books in order to achieve a few lasting ones - just as a young writer or poet might have to write hundreds of poems before writing his first significant one.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Writing, Order

  Joyce Carol Oates, Lee Milazzo (1989). “Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates”, p.63, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• It's always a challenge to discover the most effective first sentence, and the most effective final sentence, in a chapter for instance, and in the book as a whole.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Challenges, Finals

  "Writing Lessons From the Madly Prolific Joyce Carol Oates". Interview with Alexander Sammon, www.motherjones.com. September 10, 2016.

• I have read on a Kindle. But the Kindle we had only worked for about eight months then it stopped working. You don't have to get books repaired.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Eight, Months

  "Joyce Carol Oates: 'I had a dream about a woman whose make-up was dried and cracking, she made a fool of herself'". Interview with Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. February 25, 2012.

• The books I read I do enjoy, very much; otherwise I wouldn't read them. Most of them are for review, for the New York Review of Books, and substantial.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  New York, Book, Reviews

• I rarely write in my own voice except in book reviews and memoirs; otherwise, I am writing in mediated voices, modulated in terms of the characters whom the voices express.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Writing, Character

  "Writing Lessons From the Madly Prolific Joyce Carol Oates". Interview with Alexander Sammon, www.motherjones.com. September 10, 2016.

• Productivity is a relative matter. And it's really insignificant: What is ultimately important is a writer's strongest books.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Important, Matter

  Joyce Carol Oates, Lee Milazzo (1989). “Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates”, p.63, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• Yes, I've listened to just a few audiobooks - but hope to listen to more. I've wanted to investigate how my own books sound in this format and find the experience of listening, and not reading, quite fascinating.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Reading, Listening

• Honorary degrees and lifetime achievement awards are very encouraging. I know that it might sound strange that a writer who has published many books still needs encouragement, but this is true.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Encouraging, Encouragement, Book

• I don't read for amusement, I read for enlightenment. I do a lot of reviewing, so I have a steady assignment of reading. I'm also a judge for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which gives awards to literature and nonfiction.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Reading, Awards

• I read books. Avidly, ardently! As if my life depended upon it.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Reading, Book Reading

  Joyce Carol Oates (2009). “The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art”, p.8, Zondervan

• I haven't the faintest idea what my royalties are. I haven't the faintest idea how many copies of books sold, or how many books that I've written. I could look these things up; I have no interest in them. I don't know how much money I have. There are a lot of things I just don't care about.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Ideas, Looks

  "Video: a visit with Joyce Carol Oates" by Kristina Budelis, www.newyorker.com. June 21, 2013.

• Early publication can be a dubious blessing: we all know writers who would give anything not to have published their first book, and go about trying to buy up all existing copies.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Blessing, Giving

  Joyce Carol Oates (2009). “The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art”, p.25, Zondervan

• I remember once asking Grandma about a book she was reading, a biography of Abraham Lincoln, and how she answered me: this was the first conversation of my life that concerned a book, and 'the life of the mind' - and now, such subjects have become my life.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Grandma, Reading

• A writer who has published as many books as I have has developed, of necessity, a hide like a rhino's, while inside there dwells a frail, hopeful butterfly of a spirit.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Butterfly, Rhinos

  Joyce Carol Oates, Lee Milazzo (1989). “Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates”, p.64, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• If a book I've committed myself to review turns out to be 'disappointing' I make an effort to present it objectively to the reader, including a good number of excerpts from the text, so that the reader might form his or her own opinion independent of my own.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Independent, Numbers

• The other book that I worry no one reads anymore is James Joyce's Ulysses. It's not easy, but every page is wonderful and repays the effort. I started reading it in high school, but I wasn't really able to grasp it. Then I read it in college. I once spent six weeks in a graduate seminar reading it. It takes that long. That's the problem. No one reads that way anymore. People may spend a week with a book, but not six.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Reading, School

  Interview with Amy Sutherland, www.bostonglobe.com. March 23, 2013.

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