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Be Your Own Editor/critic. Sympathetic But Merciless!
-Joyce Carol Oates
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Be Your Own Editor/critic.

Joyce Carol Oates
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Be Your Own Editor/critic. Sympathetic But Merciless!

Understanding the Quote: "be your own editor/critic. sympathetic but merciless!..."

This quote by Joyce Carol Oates reflects deeply on the theme of editors. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Editors, Sympathetic, Critics, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Joyce Carol Oates interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is celebrated for insightful thoughts on editors and sympathetic. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Without Craft, Art Remains Private. Without Art, Craft Is Merely Hackwork.
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Princeton Is Quite Integrated. Women Are Professors At Princeton. Women Are Students At Princeton. That Began In The 1970s.
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Beauty Is A Question Of Optics. All Sight Is Illusion.
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A Man Will Reveal His True Self, Or So It Seems, On The Tennis Court.
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Of Our Hurts We Make Monuments Of Survival. If We Survive.
Hurt
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Anyone Who Teaches Knows That You Don't Really Experience A Text Until You've Taught It, In Loving Detail, With An Intelligent And Responsive Class.
Intelligent
Class
Details
It's One Of Those Secrets That's Embarrassing To Acknowledge, But We Do Love Our Students.
Secret
Students
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It Is Only Through Disruptions And Confusion That We Grow, Jarred Out Of Ourselves By The Collision Of Someone Else's Private World With Our Own.
Inspirational
Motivational
Confusion
Who Is To Blame For This Most Recent Of Sports Disgraces In America? The Culture That Flings Young Athletes Like Tyson Up Out Of Obscurity, Makes Millionaires Of Them And Watches Them Self-destruct?
Sports
Athlete
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If You Explore Beneath Shyness Or Party Chit-chat, You Can Sometimes Turn A Dull Exchange Into An Intriguing One. I've Found This To Be Particularly True In The Case Of Professors Or Intellectuals, Who Are Full Of Fascinating Information, But Need Encouragement Before They'll Divulge It.
Encouragement
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... Such Speculation Is Like Staring Into The Hot White Sun. You Know The Sun Is There But You Can't See A Thing.
White
Hot
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To Be True To Life, A Novel Must Have An Ending That Is Inevitable Given The Specific Personalities Of The Characters Involved. The Novelist Must Not Impose An Ending Upon Them.
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A Writer Who Has Published As Many Books As I Have Has Developed, Of Necessity, A Hide Like A Rhino's, While Inside There Dwells A Frail, Hopeful Butterfly Of A Spirit.
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The Despairing Soul Is A Rebel.
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I Haven't Any Formal Schedule, But I Love To Write In The Morning, Before Breakfast. Sometimes The Writing Goes So Smoothly That I Don't Take A Break For Many Hours - And Consequently Have Breakfast At Two Or Three In The Afternoon On Good Days.
Morning
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Self-criticism Is An Art Not Many Are Qualified To Practice.
Art
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And This Is The Forbidden Truth, The Unspeakable Taboo - That Evil Is Not Always Repellent But Frequently Attractive; That It Has The Power To Make Of Us Not Simply Victims, As Nature And Accident Do, But Active Accomplices.
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Victim
Attractive
Evil Isn't A Cosmological Riddle, Only Just Selfish Human Behavior.
Selfish
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Prose-it Might Be Speculated-is Discourse; Poetry Ellipsis. Prose Is Spoken Aloud; Poetry Overheard. The One Is Presumably Articulate And Social, A Shared Language, The Voice Of "communication"; The Other Is Private, Allusive, Teasing, Sly, Idiosyncratic As The Spider's Delicate Web, A Kind Of Witchcraft Unfathomable To Ordinary Minds.
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Writing
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You Need So Much Energy And Encouragement To Write That If Someone Says Something Negative, Some Of That Energy Goes.
Encouragement
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After My Parents Passed Away - In 2000 And 2003 - I Felt I Could Take The Time To Think About The Past And Imagine What It Would Have Been Like To Be My Grandmother.
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Writing! The Activity For Which The Only Adequate Bribe Is The Possibility Of Suicide, One Day.
Suicide
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One Day
Each Genre Exerts A Considerable Spell, As A Kind Of "form" To Be Filled, As A Shakespearean Sonnet Is Filled.
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I Work Very Slowly. It's Like Building A Ladder, Where You're Building Your Own Ladder Rung By Rung, And You're Climbing The Ladder. It's Not The Best Way To Build A Ladder, But I Don't Know Any Other Way.
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Why Is Humanism Not The Preeminent Belief Of Humankind?
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People Have Libraries At Home, They Have Bookshelves, They Have Cds. And They Sort Of Try, People Try To Bring Great Artists Into Their Lives, Into Their Physical Houses And Sort Of Live With Portions Of Them. But They're Not Really Deeply Engaging With Them.
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Maybe, Love Is Always Forgiveness, To A Degree.
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As A Child. I Grew Up On A Small Farm, So I Did A Lot Of Drawings Of Animals, Chickens And People. At The Bottom Of Every Page, I'd Put A Strange Scribble. I Was Emulating Adult Handwriting, Though I Didn't Actually Know How To Write.
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Even As A Young Child, I Was A Lover Of Books And Of The Spaces In Which, As Indeed In A Sacred Temple, Books Might Safely Reside.
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Boxing Is Rough. Even If You Win, You Get Hurt.
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If My Favorite, Most Comfortable Place Is By Our Fireplace In Cold Weather, Expedient Places Are On An Airplane, In A Waiting Room Or Even Waiting In Line; Frequently These Days, While On The Phone Having Been 'put On Hold.'
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We Inhabit Ourselves Without Valuing Ourselves, Unable To See That Here, Now, This Very Moment Is Sacred; But Once It’s Gone – Its Value Is Incontestable.
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Very Few Writers Of Distinction In Fact Were Outstanding As Undergraduates.
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Pseudonyms
I'm Sure All That You've Heard Is Just The Usual Gossip, Invented To Injure Feelings Rather Than Illuminate Truth.
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Her Wish To Die Was As Pervasive As A Dial Tone: You Lift The Receiver, It's Always There.
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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.
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It Is Important For Me To Discover The Ideal Title, For Without This Title The Story Or Novel Isn't Quite In Focus.
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People Might Be Surprised To Know How Much I Throw Away. For Every Page I Publish, I Throw 10 Pages Away.
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My Parents Inspired Me By Their Example. They Both Grew Up In The Depression, And Both Of Them Had To Quit School When They Were Quite Young To Work, Because There Actually Was No Choice. So They've Always Impressed Me With Their Resilience, Their Good Spirits, Their Courage. I Just Remember Them Carrying On And Just Doing Their Lives. They Really Made A Strong Impression On Me.
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I Love Insult, It's Always Honest.
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Insult
By The Way Of Connecting With Subject, With Theme, I Was Able To Find A Kind Of Lifeline. Writing's Like A Lifeline. You Have To Get The Right Way In. Otherwise The Material Just Lies There, And You Can't Do Anything With It.
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There Is The Expectation That A Younger Generation Has The Opportunity To Redeem The Crimes And Failings Of Their Elders And Would Have The Strength And Idealism To Do So.
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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.
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Humility
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Thinking
Ideas
Long
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Might
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Without You
Live Well
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Self
Devil
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America
Boxing
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Thinking
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Thinking
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I Have Forced Myself To Begin Writing When I've Been Utterly Exhausted, When I've Felt My Soul As Thin As A Playing Card…and Somehow The Activity Of Writing Changes Everything.
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Soul
Cards
For What Is Delusion But The Prelude To Hurt. And What Is Hurt But The Prelude To Rage.
Hurt
Rage
Prelude
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Eye
Bridges
Crosses
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Mean
Self
The Third Man In The Ring Makes Boxing Possible.
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Boxing
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Voice
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Subjects
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Keys
Voice
Trying
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Boxing
Religion
Celebration
When I Was Very Little, Four Or Five, I Did Comic Strip Drawings, So My First Novel Had No Words. I Couldn't Write And Thought Adult Handwriting Was A Mysterious Scribble. When I Was 14, My Grandmother Gave Me A Typewriter And I Started Writing In A Different Way.
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Grandmother
Typewriters
Getting The First Draft Finished Is Like Pushing A Peanut With Your Nose Across A Very Dirty Floor.
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Noses
Firsts
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.
Country
Art
Half
A Good, Sympathetic Review Is Always A Wonderful Surprise.
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Surprise
Reviews
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Writing
Letters
Hours
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Husband
Writing
Thinking
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Night
Scott Fitzgerald
Fables
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Real
Flames
Burning
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Childhood
Want
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Remember Something
Facts
Difficult
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Powerful
Confused
Heart
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School
College
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Adults
Done
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Expression
Quality
The Body Can't Distinguish Between Cleansing And Punishing For The Body Is Ignorant, And Mute Besides.
Ignorant
Body
Cleansing
Fame's Carapace Does Not Allow For Easy Breathing.
Breathing
Doe
Fame
I'm Nobody's Daughter Now. I'm Through With That.
Daughter
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Memories
Eye
Sight
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Writing
Opportunity
Stories
To Love Life For Some Men Is To Love Fighting, For Fighting, And Not Love, Is Seen As Man's Deepest Passion.
Passion
Love Life
Fighting
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House
Community
Culture
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Men
People
Want
Memory Blurs, That's The Point. If Memory Didn't Blur You Wouldn't Have The Fool's Courage To Do Things Again, Again, Again, That Tear You Apart.
Memories
Tears
Fool
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Writing
Self
Imagination
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Pain
Winning
Boxing
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Hurt
Teens
Mouths
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Mother
Fate
Journey
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Writing
Perspective
Political
Later, Her First Intense, Serious Love Affair, Yes Then She'd Lost Something More Tangible, If Undefinable: Her Heart? Her Independence? Her Control Of, Definition Of, Self? That First True Loss, The Furious Bafflement Of It. And Never Again Quite So Assured, Confident.
Heart
Loss
Self
And So You Must Grant To God What Is God And Not Try To Think Of What You Have Lost, For That Way Is Madness.
Thinking
Trying
Way
Truths Are The Last Thing You Learn About Your Family. By The Time You Learn, You're No Longer Their Child.
Children
Lasts
Our Family
All That Matters In Life Is Forging Deep Ties Of Love And Family And Friends. Writing And Reading Come Later.
Reading
Writing
Ties Of Love
Much In Our Lives Is Chance.
Chance
Life Is
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Might
Reason
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War
People
Extinction
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Poet
Form
One Of The Large Consolations For Experiencing Anything Unpleasant Is The Knowledge That One Can Communicate It.
Communication
Communicate
Consolation
Don't Try To Anticipate An Ideal Reader - Or Any Reader. He/she Might Exist - But Is Reading Someone Else.
Reading
Writing
Trying
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Ideas
Numbers
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Civilization
Literature
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Giving Up
Would Be
Given
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Might
Absurd
Lost
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Acting
Profession
Knows
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Past
Knows
The Heavenly Light You Admire Is Fossil-light, It's The Unfathomably Distant Past You Gaze Into, Stars Long Extinct
Stars
Past
Light
Her Problem Wasn't She Was A Dumb Blonde, It Was She Wasn't A Blonde And She Wasn't Dumb.
Dumb
Blonde
Problem
Running! If There's Any Activity Happier, More Exhilarating, More Nourishing To The Imagination, I Can't Think Of What It Might Be.
Running
Thinking
Imagination
Each Time I Undertake To Reread Virginia Woolf, I Am Somewhat Baffled By The Signature Breathlessness And Relentlessly "poetic" Tone, The Shimmering Impressionism, So Very Different From The Vivid, Precise, Magisterial (and Often Very Funny) Prose Of Her Contemporary James Joyce.
Virginia
Signatures
Different
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Children
Writing
Together
She Wasn't In Love But She Would Love Him, If That Would Save Her.
Ifs
I Don't Feel I Write Fast. I Write In Longhand And Do So Much Revision. On The Page, It's So Old-fashioned. I Could Write A Whole Novel On Scrap Paper, Scribbles And Things. I Keep Looking At It And Something Develops. For Me, Using A Word Processor Would Mean Staring At A Screen For Too Many Hours.
Writing
Mean
Paper
The Mysteries Of The Female Sex! We Men Can Never Hope To Fathom Your Depths, But Only Try Not To Drown In Them.
Sex
Men
Trying
How Lovely This World Is, Really: One Simply Has To Look.
Lovely
Looks
World
Ultimately, We Measure Ourselves Against Our Own Ideas Of Idealism And Perfection, And We Don't Always Come Very Close To Them.
Ideas
Perfection
Idealism
For Some Reason, Voters Can Be Brainwashed, And They Vote Sometimes Against Their Own Best Interests, Let Alone Voting Against The Interests Of People Who Need Them, Like People Who Are Disenfranchised And People Who Are Poor And So Forth.
People
Voting
Needs
A Writer Can't Subtract Or Excise Any Of His/her Past Because Doing So Would Erase The Work Produced During That Time.
Past
Erase
For Madness Must Be Punished In A World In Which Mere Sanity Is Prized. The Revenge Of The Ordinary Upon The Gifted.
Revenge
Ordinary
World
Of Course, Both [oscar] Wilde & [vladimir] Nabokov Believe In Many Things, And These Things Emerge In Their Writing Clearly - For Wilde, The Folly Of Humankind And The (romantic) Grandeur Of The Heroic, Lone Individual (not Unlike Wilde Himself); For Nabokov, The Possibility Of A Kind Of Transcendence Through A Great, Prevailing, Superior Sort Of Love (especially In Ada, The Most Self-congratulatory Of Novels.)
Believe
Writing
Self
Whoever Was Stupid Was Beneath Worry Or Thought; You Did Not Have To Figure Them Out. This Eliminated Hundreds Of People. In This Life You Had Time Only For A Certain Amount Of Thinking, And There Was No Need To Waste Any Of It On People Who Were Not Threatening.
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Thinking
People
One Of Life's Minor Satisfactions Is Forgetting.
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Forget
Minors
I Don't Know Whether I Am Different From Other People. Perhaps I Am. Perhaps No One Has A Personality, And People Are Inventing Themselves In The Context In Which They Find Themselves.
People
Personality
Different
The Institution Of Marriage Is Just Formalizing An Emotion, An Attempt To Make It Seem Permanent. The Emotion Will Last Or It Won't Last; Nothing Can Guarantee It.
Marriage
Wedding
Guarantees
This Was Before Voice Mail, Recorded Phone Messages You Can't Escape. Life Was Easier Then. You Just Didn't Pick Up The Phone.
Phones
Voice
Mail
I Want To Tell You That I Love You I Want To Tell You That I Love You I Want To Tell You That I Love I Love I Love I Love But You Do Not.
Breakup
Love You
Want
The Written Word, Obviously, Is Very Inward, And When We're Reading, We're Thinking. It's A Sort Of Spiritual, Meditative Activity. When We're Looking At Visual Objects, I Think Our Eyes Are Obviously Directed Outward, So There's Not As Much Reflective Time. And It's The Reflectiveness And The Spiritual Inwardness About Reading That Appeals To Me.
Spiritual
Reading
Eye
Love Is An Indescribable Sensation - Perhaps A Conviction, A Sense Of Certitude.
Love Is
Conviction
Indescribable
There Is Something Thrilling In The Mimesis Of Life's Surprising Unfolding.
Mimesis
Unfolding
Surprising
No, The Thing Is, We All Love Storytelling, And As A Writer You Get To Tell Stories All The Time.
Stories
Storytelling
Nothing Comes Of So Many Things, If You Have Patience.
Having Patience
Ifs
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.
Creativity
Men
Goal
What Is A Family, After All, Except Memories? Haphazard And Precious As The Contents Of A Catch-all Drawer In The Kitchen.
Family
Memories
Kitchen
When One Crosses Over From An Activity, Or The Verb, Of Writing Or Doing, And Becomes A Noun, Like "a Writer" I Think That Is An Act Of Supreme Self-consciousness That I've Never, In Effect, Made. I Write, But I Don't Like To Think Of Myself As A Writer. I Think It's Somewhat Self-aggrandizing And Pretentious. Now, I Am A Teacher.
Teacher
Writing
Thinking
The Strangeness Of Time. Not In Its Passing, Which Can Seem Infinite, Like A Tunnel Whose End You Can't See, Whose Beginning You've Forgotten, But In The Sudden Realization That Something Finite, Has Passed, And Is Irretrievable.
Change
Time
Tunnels
A Typical Biography Relying Upon Individuals' Notorious Memories And The Anecdotes They've Invented Contains A High Degree Of Fiction, Yet Is Considered 'nonfiction.'
Memories
Typical
Degrees
Better To Be Despised, Then, Than To Be Ignored; Or Damned With Condescending Praise.
Ignored
Praise
Condescending
I See The World In Ways That Might Be Considered Somewhat Harsh And Darwinistic. At The Same Time Mediated, As In Darwin, By A Real Idealism And An Excitement About The Possibilities Of The Intellect And Imagination To Deal With This Somewhat Brutal World.
Real
Imagination
World
Art Does The Same Things Dreams Do. We Have A Hunger For Dreams And Art Fulfills That Hunger. So Much Of Real Life Is A Disappointment. That's Why We Have Art.
Dream
Art
Disappointment
There Was A Greek Philosopher Who Taught That, Of All Things, Not To Have Been Born Is The Sweetest State. But I Believe Sleep Is The Sweetest State. You're Dead, Yet Alive. There's No Sensation So Exquisite.
Believe
Sleep
Greek
The Music Was Always In The Background, Like Music At A Church Service; It Was Something To Depend Upon.
Church Service
Church
Backgrounds
Celebrate While You Can
Celebrate
Except That Awards Are Competitive, Which Is A Negative Thing, They Are Wonderful For Singling Out Deserving Individuals And Bringing Their Work To The Attention Of Many Potential Readers Who Might Otherwise Have Been Totally Unaware Of Them.
Awards
Might
Negative
Ideas Brush Past Fleeting And Insubstantial As Moths. But I Let Them Go, I Don't Want Them. What I Want Is A Voice.
Past
Ideas
Voice
The Innocence Of Such Children Doesn't Answer Our Deepest Questions About This Vale Of Tears To Which We Are Condemned, But It Helps To Dispel Them. That Is The Secret To Family Life.
Children
Secret
Tears
My Grandmother Could Never Have Written A Memoir, So 'the Gravedigger's Daughter' Is A Homage To Her Life, And To The Lives Of Other Young Women Of Her Generation, Which Are So Rarely Articulated.
Daughter
Grandmother
Generations
Any Kind Of Creative Activity Is Likely To Be Stressful. The More Anxiety, The More You Feel That You Are Headed In The Right Direction. Easiness, Relaxation, Comfort - These Are Not Conditions That Usually Accompany Serious Work.
Creative
Anxiety
Relaxation
It Feels Good, Honey, But It Isn't Love.
Feel Good
Honey
Feels
Keeing Busy" Is The Remedy For All The Ills In America. It's Also The Means By Which The Creative Impulse Is Destroyed.
Inspiring
Creativity
Mean
I Was Trying Not To Be Happy, Hopeful. I Did Not Believe I Deserved Happiness Or Even Hope, If You Knew My Soul.
Believe
Hopeful
Soul
Of The Widow's Countless Death-duties There Is Really Just One That Matters: On The First Anniversary Of Her Husband's Death The Widow Should Think I Kept Myself Alive.
Death
Husband
Thinking
I Have Beliefs, Of Course, Like Everyone-but I Don't Always Believe In Them.
Believe
Belief
Always Believe
Ambitious, Absorbing, And Poignantly Moving.
Moving
Ambitious
Absorbing
The Denial Of Language Is A Suicidal One And We Pay For It With Our Own Lives.
Writing
Suicidal
Denial
Like Most People, I Can Be Very Easily Hurt.
Hurt
People
I Can
Criticism Is, For Me, Like Essay Writing, A Wonderful Way Of Relaxation; It Doesn't Require A Heightened And Mediated Voice, Like Prose Fiction, But Rather A Calm, Rational, Even Conversational Voice.
Writing
Voice
Relaxation
For What Are The Words With Which To Summarize A Lifetime, So Much Crowded Confused Happiness Terminated By Such Stark Slow-motion Pain?
Pain
Confused
Slow Motion
The Joyous Fulfillment Of Your Sex : The Sacred Duties Of Beloved Wife, And Helpmeet, And Mother. In Opposition To The Vulgar And Mercantile Hurly-burly Of The Great World, The Idyllic Pleasures Of The Domestic Hearth-the Which, I Firmly Believe, Make Of One Small Room An Everywhere, Indeed; And Provide Us With That Small Measure Of Bliss, Which Is, If We Are Greatly Fortunate, And Deserving, Our Lord's Promise To Us, Of The Heaven To Come.
Mother
Sex
Women
I Learned Long Ago That Being Lewis Carroll Was Infinitely More Exciting Than Being Alice.
Long Ago
Long
Exciting
The Historical Woodrow Wilson Suffered From Numerous Complaints Which We Might Today Label As Psychosomatic. Yet, Wilson Did Have A Stroke As A Relatively Young Man Of 39 And Seemed Always To Be Ill. He Was 'high-strung' - Intensely Neurotic - Yet A Charismatic Personality Nonetheless.
Men
Personality
Historical
Blood Transforms The Warm Bath Water And, In It, I See Weakly That This Was A Mistake. The Razor's Cut Is Not Deep, Nevertheless The Blood Rushes Out Happily In The Warm Water As If Kin To It, The Same Tender Substance. Rising A New Person Transformed With An Icy Sense Of Error I Go To The Sink And Turn On Cold Water Which Is Not Friendly To Blood. The Cut Is Deeper Than Imagined.
Suicide
Mistake
Self Harm
The Greatest Works Of Literature Seem To Embody Both "art" And "morality".
Art
Literature
Morality
The Challenge Is To Resist Circumstances. Any Idiot Can Be Happy In A Happy Place, But Moral Courage Is Required To Be Happy In A Hellhole.
Challenges
Moral
Idiot
The Books I Read I Do Enjoy, Very Much; Otherwise I Wouldn't Read Them. Most Of Them Are For Review, For The New York Review Of Books, And Substantial.
New York
Book
Reviews
Long Ago I'd Said That I Am "fascinated By The Phantasmagoria Of Human Personality" - This Is Perhaps Even Truer Now Than Years Ago.
Long Ago
Years
Personality
I Think All Art Comes Out Of Conflict. When I Write I Am Always Looking For The Dramatic Kernel Of An Event, The Junctures Of People's Lives When They Go In One Direction, Not Another.
Art
Writing
Thinking
How Lawyers Make Work For One Another! You're All Priests, Worshipping The Same God. No Wonder You Adore One Another.
Lawyer
Wonder
Priests
Reading Is The Sole Means By Which We Slip, Involuntarily, Often Helplessly, Into Another's Skin, Another's Voice, Another's Soul.
Book
Reading
Mean
Characters Begin As Voices, Then Gain Presence By Being Viewed In Others' Eyes. Characters Define One Another In Dramatic Contexts. It Is Often Very Exciting, When Characters Meet - Out Of Their Encounters, Unanticipated Stories Can Spring.
Spring
Character
Eye
God's Blessing Is Not Always To Be Distinguished From His Wrath.
Blessing
Wrath
Distinguished
Obviously The Imagination Is Fueled By Emotions Beyond The Control Of The Conscious Mind.
Imagination
Mind
Emotion
I'm Very American In The Sense Of Being An Explorer. America Is Filled With People Who Are Interested In Exploring Landscapes, Either External Or Internal. A Westward Nation Of Explorers.
America
People
Landscape
I Haven't The Faintest Idea What My Royalties Are. I Haven't The Faintest Idea How Many Copies Of Books Sold, Or How Many Books That I've Written. I Could Look These Things Up; I Have No Interest In Them. I Don't Know How Much Money I Have. There Are A Lot Of Things I Just Don't Care About.
Book
Ideas
Looks
I Rarely Write In My Own Voice Except In Book Reviews And Memoirs; Otherwise, I Am Writing In Mediated Voices, Modulated In Terms Of The Characters Whom The Voices Express.
Book
Writing
Character
The American Dream Is A Multi-metaphor Made Up Of Distinct Regions. Many Regions Of This Country Are Almost Like Different Countries. Even In One State, Northern And Southern California Are Like Two Separate Countries.
Dream
Country
Two
A Lawyer Is Basically A Mouth, Like A Shark Is A Mouth Attached To A Long Gut. The Business Of Lawyers Is To Talk, To Interrupt One Another, And To Devour Each Other If Possible.
Sharks
Long
Mouths
She Thought That This Man Was Her Savior, That He Had Come To Her At A Time In Her Life When Her Life Demanded Completion, An End, A Permanent Fixing Of All That Was Troubled And Shifting And Deadly. And Yet It Was Absurd To Think This. No Person Could Save Another. So She Drew Back From Him And Released Him.
Broken Heart
Men
Thinking
I Read Books. Avidly, Ardently! As If My Life Depended Upon It.
Book
Reading
Book Reading
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