Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.

quote by Joyce Carol Oates
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The great menace to the life of an industry is industrial self-complacency.

quote by Joyce Carol Oates
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To be knocked out doesn't mean what it seems. A boxer does not have to get up.

quote by Joyce Carol Oates
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Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost.

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

quote by Joyce Carol Oates
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Our house is made of glass... and our lives are made of glass; and there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves.

quote by Joyce Carol Oates
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How does the poet transform his banal thoughts (are not most thoughts banal?) into such stunning forms, into beauty?

quote by Joyce Carol Oates
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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.

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

quote by Joyce Carol Oates
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Life and people are complex. A writer as an artist doesn't have the personality of a politician. We don't see the world that simply.

quote by Joyce Carol Oates
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