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
I consider tragedy the highest form of art.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Tragedy reflects the deepest human experiences and emotions, making it a profound artistic expression.
Joyce Carol Oates suggests that tragedy, despite its pain and suffering, captures the complexities of human existence more poignantly than any other art form. This perspective elevates tragic narratives to a critical role in understanding and exploring the human condition, asserting that through tragedy, artists convey truths that resonate with our shared experiences of grief, loss, and endurance.
Themes
TragedyArtHuman ExperienceEmotionExpression
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of storytelling in literature.
More from Joyce Carol Oates
All quotes βI 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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People who are knowledgeable about poetry sometimes discuss it in that knowing, rather hateful way in which oenophiles talk about wine: robust, delicate, muscular. This has nothing to do with how most of us experience it, the heart coming around the corner and unexpectedly running into the mind. Of all the words that have stuck to the ribs of my soul, poetry has been the most filling.
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I don't think in terms of optimism and pessimism when writing a story. I am telling a story.
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I used to enjoy using dots where they would be least expected, not at the end of a sentence but in the middle, creating the effect... of a skipped beat. It seemed to me the mind reacted - first!... in dots, dashes, and exclamation points, then rationalized, drew up a brief, with periods.
Tom WolfeRead