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We all have numerous identities that shift with circumstances. The writing self is likely to be a highly private, conjured sort of being — you would not find it in a grocery store.

— Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates interviews herself (2013)

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More quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

At a time when politics deals in distortions and half truths, truth is to be found in the liberal arts. There's something afoot in this country and you are very much a part of it.

Address at Mount Holyoke College (2006)

When people say there is too much violence in [my books], what they are saying is there is too much reality in life.

Prose — it might be speculated — is discourse; poetry ellipsis.

Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing.

Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Joyce Carol Oates (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.