Joyce Carol Oates

“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 int...”

“I haven't any formal schedule, but I love to write in the morning, before breakfast. Sometimes the writing goes so smoothly that I don't take a break for many hours - and consequently have b...”

“You need so much energy and encouragement to write that if someone says something negative, some of that energy goes.”

“A writer can't subtract or excise any of his/her past because doing so would erase the work produced during that time.”

“Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.”

“When you are writing literary writing, you are communicating something subtextual with emotions and poetry. The prose has to have a voice; it's not just typing. It takes a while to get that...”

“I should say, one of the things about being a widow or a widower, you really, really need a sense of humor, because everything's going to fall apart.”

“I would suggest the widow do things the husband used to do, so he seems to be there with you. You will feel like just going to bed. It's so wonderful, going to bed.”

“I think it's very important for writers and artists generally to be witnesses to the world, and to be transparent. To let other people speak... to travel... to experience the world. And memo...”