{"author":"Joyce Carol Oates","author_id":"Joyce+Carol+Oates","total_quotes":141,"quotes":[{"text":"Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.","author":"Joyce Carol Oates","tags":["best","hope","optimism","pessimism","pragmatism","worst"],"id":6349,"author_id":"Joyce+Carol+Oates"},{"text":"For obviously the advantage for most writers is that no one sees them. The writer is invisible, which confers power.","author":"Joyce Carol Oates","tags":["power","writing"],"id":7467,"author_id":"Joyce+Carol+Oates"},{"text":"Playdate. (n) A Date arranged by adults in which young children are brought together, usually at the home of one of them, for the premeditated purpose of “playing”. A feature of contemporary American upscale suburban life in which “neighborhoods” have ceased to exist, and children no longer trail in and out of “neighbor childrens” houses or play in “backyards”. In the absence of sidewalks in newer “gated” coummunities, children cannot “walk” to playdates but must be driven by adults, usually mothers. A “playdate” is never initiated by the players (I.E., children), but only by their mothers.In American-suburban social climbing through playdating, this is the chapter you’ve been awaiting.","author":"Joyce Carol Oates","tags":["contemporary","fiction","literature","mystery","novels"],"id":15558,"author_id":"Joyce+Carol+Oates"},{"text":"In love there are two things - bodies and words. ","author":"Joyce Carol Oates","tags":["love"],"id":22530,"author_id":"Joyce+Carol+Oates"},{"text":"It was not yet known how the Revolution would develop. But Upton supposed that the arguments of the philosophical anarchists were most convincing: society would fragmentise into independent, self-governing communities of mutually congenial individuals, requiring no police, no army, no guardians of morality, and no government. The old Deity being dead and dethroned, Humankind would come at last into power.","author":"Joyce Carol Oates","tags":["revolution"],"id":22997,"author_id":"Joyce+Carol+Oates"},{"text":"I 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. ~ Through the local or regional, through our individual voices, we work to create art that will speak to others who know nothing of us. In our very obliqueness to one another, an unexpected intimacy is born.","author":"Joyce Carol Oates","tags":["writing","writing-philosophy","writing-process"],"id":25534,"author_id":"Joyce+Carol+Oates"},{"text":"That I was sleeping at a time when my husband was dying is so horrible a thought, I can’t confront it.","author":"Joyce Carol Oates","tags":["biography"],"id":25882,"author_id":"Joyce+Carol+Oates"},{"text":"But he doesn't love her. I invented that. It is a plot if you imagine people in love--the lazy looping criss crosses of love, blows, stares, tears. No. It doesn't happen. No love. People meet, touch, stare into one another's faces, shake their heads clear, move on, forget. It doesn't happen.","author":"Joyce Carol Oates","tags":["love","people","plot"],"id":33307,"author_id":"Joyce+Carol+Oates"},{"text":"Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.","author":"Joyce Carol Oates","tags":["reading"],"id":34112,"author_id":"Joyce+Carol+Oates"},{"text":"Derailed. In exile. Deeply ashamed, despised. Yet she had so little pride, she was grateful most days simply to be alive.There is Minimalist art; there are minimalist lives.","author":"Joyce Carol Oates","tags":["fiction"],"id":35024,"author_id":"Joyce+Carol+Oates"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":141,"pages":15,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}