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"You never give such relationships a thought, To give a thought, to take a thought is a function of dissociation, distance. You can't exercise memory until you've removed yourself from memory's source."
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"Humans have better wings than birds: Human mind is a perfect wing and with this wing we can fly to some farthermost places no bird can ever dream! Yes, mind is a wing; and when it comes to flying man is the most sophisticated bird on earth!"

"You do not have a mind belongs to yourself! Your thoughts are the thoughts of your culture! When you speak, it is not you but your culture, your religion, your traditions, your political or spiritual leaders speak! If not you but your culture, your religion etc. are speaking on behalf of you, then what are you, who are you? A stupid puppet? Get a mind which belongs to yourself! Only then you will be able to speak with your own thoughts on behalf of your own self!"

"A moderate silence ensued. A neutral-to-slightly-positive silence. True, silence is still silence, except when you think about it too much."

"How can you read and talk at the same time? I asked."Well, I usually can't, but neither the book nor the conversation is particularly intellectually challenging."

"You're wrong. The mind is not like raindrops. It does not fall from the skies, it does not lose itself among other things. If you believe in me at all, then believe this: I promise you I will find it. Everything depends on this." "I believe you," she whispers after a moment. "Please find my mind."

"I want pills called September 10. You take one and your mind feels like the 11th never happened."
Explore more quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

"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."

"This was before voice mail, recorded phone messages you can't escape. Life was easier then. You just didn't pick up the phone."

"I'm drawn to write about upstate New York in the way in which a dreamer might have recurring dreams. My childhood and girlhood were spent in upstate New York, in the country north of Buffalo and West of Rochester. So this part of New York state is very familiar to me and, with its economic difficulties, has become emblematic of much of American life."

"How strange it is, to be walking away. Is it possible that I am really going to leave Ray-here? Is it possible that he won't be coming home with me in another day or two, as we'd planned? Such a thought is too profound for me to grasp. It's like fitting a large unwieldy object in a small space. My brain hurts, trying to contain it."

"Only when men are connected to large universal goals are they really happy-and one result of their happiness is a rush of creative activity."

"This is my life now. Absurd, but unpredictable. Not absurd because unpredictable but unpredictable because absurd. If I have lost the meaning of my life, I might still find small treasured things among the spilled and pilfered trash."

"You never give such relationships a thought, To give a thought, to take a thought is a function of dissociation, distance. You can't exercise memory until you've removed yourself from memory's source."

"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."

"As a teacher at Princeton, I'm surrounded by people who work hard so I just make good use of my time. And I don't really think of it as work - writing a novel, in one sense, is a problem-solving exercise."

"Nowhere in a hospital can you walk without blundering into the memory pools of strangers-their dread of what was imminent in their lives, their false hopes, the wild elation of their hopes, their sudden terrible and irrefutable knowledge; you would not wish to hear echoes of their whispered exchanges-But he was looking so well yesterday, what has happened to him overnight."
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