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"He was ugly, himself. Weird-ugly. But ugliness in a man doesn't matter, much. Ugliness in a woman is her life."
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"If a moneyed man had a "corny mind, a flatterer would immediately start chasing him like a hungry hen!"
"A government which is not liked by the artists is certainly a bad government, because artist sees very well what is behind the masks!"
"An honest government is the childish dream of the gullible men!"
"Our spiritual history is the history of God-ventriloquists! The truth is that the voice of God is the voice of cunning Man, the ventriloquist's voice!"
"In any country where there is a dishonorable government, there is certainly a dishonorable nation!"
"Most of the time it is a good job and a good honour to fight against people's values, because most of the time people's values are irrational and absurd!"
Explore more quotes by Joyce Carol Oates
"Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart."
"Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a very dirty peanut across the floor with your nose."
"Because nothing between human beings is uncomplicated and there's no way to speak of human beings without simplifying and misrepresenting them."
"There are some secrets so toxic you can't share. Especially if you love who it is you'd have to share with."
"Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions."
"Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul."
"Dominique (who, like other Catamount girls, had a cache of pills for every occasion) offered me a bennie- Benzedrine?- to elevate my spirits. Adamantly I told her, No thanks! I wanted to face what's called reality with my eyes open.I've made that a principle for my life. Sometimes I wonder if this has been a wise decision."
"So you don't believe we have souls I guess?' and Legs laughed and said, 'Yeah probably we do but why's that mean we're gonna last forever? Like a flame is real enough, isn't it, while it's burning?-even if there's a time it goes out?'"
"It had seemed to me an elegant nightmare concoction made by adults for adults, to further the aims and fantasies of adults, and what have children to do with such things?"
"We are stimulated to emotional response, not by works that confirm our sense of the world, but by works that challenge it."
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