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.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
Even if I seemed to remember, I could not know. For just to remember something is not to know if it really happened. That is a primary fact of the inner life, the most difficult fact with which we must live.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the distinction between memory and true knowledge, highlighting the complexities of human experience.
In this quote, Joyce Carol Oates reflects on the nature of memory and knowledge, suggesting that recalling an event does not guarantee its authenticity or reality. This statement points to a profound challenge in our understanding of our inner lives, as we grapple with the reliability of our memories and the nuances of what it means to truly know something.
Themes
MemoryKnowledgeInner LifeExperienceTruth
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about the reliability of eyewitness testimony in a court case.
More from Joyce Carol Oates
All quotes →I never really knew I wanted to 'be' a writer, but I was always writing from a very young age. It became more conscious as an ideal when I was in my twenties.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
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.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
My writing is often a way of 'bearing witness' for others who lack the education and the opportunity to tell their own stories, so I hope that my writing won't be affected too much by my personal life.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
. . . there is a wish in the heart of mankind to be distracted and confused. Truth is but one attraction, and not always the most powerful.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
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My benefactor told me that my father and mother had lived and died just to have me, and that their own parents had done the same for them. He said that warriors were different in that they shift their assemblage points enough to realize the tremendous price that has been paid for their lives. This shift gives them the respect and awe that their parents never felt for life in general, or for being alive in particular.
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A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.
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...not all encounters with the world affect the mind equally. Studies have demonstrated that if the brain appraises an event as "meaningful," it will be more likely to be recalled in the future.
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