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

If food is poetry, is not poetry also food?
Joyce Carol Oates

In love there are two things - bodies and words.
Joyce Carol Oates

When people say there is too much violence in my books, what they are saying is there is too much reality in life.
Joyce Carol Oates

It is not her body that he wants but it is only through her body that he can take possession of another human being, so he must labor upon her body, he must enter her body, to make his claim.
Joyce Carol Oates

If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space.
Joyce Carol Oates

Nothing is accidental in the universe - this is one of my Laws of Physics - except the entire universe itself, which is Pure Accident, pure divinity.
Joyce Carol Oates