Joyce Carol Oates Life Quotations

Primarily, 'Black Girl/White Girl' is the story of two very different, yet somehow 'fated' girls; for Genna, her 'friendship' with Minette is the most haunting of her life, though it is one-sided and ends in tragedy.

I'm drawn to failure. I feel like I'm contending with it constantly in my own life.

"Because there has been no one to stop me" has been one of the principles of my life.

The worst thing: to give yourself away in exchange for not enough love.

I'm drawn to failure. I feel that I'm contending with it constantly in my own life.

The great menace to the life of an industry is industrial self-complacency.

To be true to life, a novel must have an ending that is inevitable given the specific personalities of the characters involved. The novelist must not impose an ending upon them.

The great happiness in life in creativity belongs to amateurs.

I can entertain the proposition that life is a metaphor for boxing--for one of those bouts that go on and on, round following round, jabs, missed punches, clinches, nothing determined, again the bell and again and you and your opponent so evenly matched it's impossible not to see that your opponent is you.... Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.

A writer’s life is in his work, and that is the place to find him.

To love life for some men is to love fighting, for fighting, and not love, is seen as man's deepest passion.

Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.

Dear girl! Life is addictive. Yet we must live.