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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!"

"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!"

"A country where women are not free has no chance ever to be something good and respectable!"

"Governments stand because people sit; if people stand, governments will sit!"

"In reality the concept of 'other nation' is wrong because there is only one nation: The Human Nation!"

"It is better to go near the truth and be imprisoned than to stay with the wrong and roam about freely, master Galilei. In fact, getting attached to falsity is terrible slavery, and real freedom is only next to the right."
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."

"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."

"The strangeness of Time. Not in its passing, which can seem infinite, like a tunnel whose end you can't see, whose beginning you've forgotten, but in the sudden realization that something finite, has passed, and is irretrievable."

"Our house is made of glass... and our lives are made of glass; and there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves."

"Where we come from in America no longer signifies. It's where we go, and what we do when we get there, that tells us who we are."

"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 breakfast at two or three in the afternoon on good days."
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