top of page
.png){kind=small}
"The city reeked of death, and the savages that resided within its imposing starkness existed in fear of their lives. They had been shocked by the recent bloody Whitechapel murders, as if starvation, disease, moral degradation, and perpetual smog drowning all color in gray wasn't enough to bring home the pathetic reality of their miserable existence. The police were no nearer to capturing the monster that lurked in the crevices, and London seemed stiller in the dark, the streets devoid of hope."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Society quotes
"It takes all sorts of people to make a world, as I've often heard, but I think there are some who could be spared,' Anne told her reflection in the east gable mirror that night."
"Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home."
"Your water is in the bottles, and my water is in the bucket, but we are brothers? I am collecting garbage, and you are in the bed, but we are sisters? My fingers are broken, and your hands are so soft, but we are family? Your God is like an angel, and my God is like an evil, but we are equal? My stomach is empty, and your stomach is so big, but we are humans?"
"PLEASE and THANK YOU...two polite phrases which are slowly disappearing from our vocabulary."
"We...advance toward a state of society in which not only each man but every impulse in each man claims carte blanche."
"People are very busy; they are so busy that when they walk in the crowds they see no one, no one but themselves; they hear no voice, no voice but their own voice!"
Explore more quotes by Joyce Carol Oates
"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."
"Still, I am angry with him. I am very angry with him. With my poor dead defenseless husband, I am furious as I was rarely-perhaps never-furious with him, in life. How can I forgive you, you've ruined both our lives."
"Obviously the imagination is fueled by emotions beyond the control of the conscious mind."
"I feel very transparent in myself. I'm more of an observer. I'm interested in what's going on. I'm not sure that I really have a personality. Some people think I do have a personality. I have a personality when I am with certain people - but when I'm not with them I don't have that personality. I just sort of go back to resembling a transparent glass of water."
"A wet autumn morning, a garbage truck clattering down the street. The first snowfall of the season, blossom sized flakes falling languidly and melting on teh ground, a premature snow fall delicate as lace, rapidly melting."
"It is utterly naive, futile, uninformed-to think that our species is exceptional. So designated to master the beasts of the Earth, as in the Book of Genesis!"
"The coolly calibrated manipulation of the credulous American public, by an administration bent upon stoking paranoid patriotism!"
"The best part of being a nanny, Katya thought, was reading children's books aloud to enraptured children like Tricia, for no one had read such books aloud to her when she'd been a little girl. There hadn't been such books in the Spivak household on County Line Road, nor would there have been any time for such interludes."
bottom of page