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.
After my husband died, I could not write much - I could not concentrate. I was too exhausted most of the time even to contemplate writing. But I did take notes - not for fiction, but for a journal, or diary, of this terrible time. I did not think that I would ever survive this interlude.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the struggle of coping with profound grief and the difficulties of creative expression following a significant loss.
In this quote, Joyce Carol Oates shares her experience of losing her husband and the emotional turmoil that ensued. She expresses how the grief made it challenging to focus on her writing, leaving her feeling exhausted. However, she turned to note-taking as a means of processing her feelings, even if it did not manifest as traditional fiction. Through her journal entries, she sought to document her sorrow, revealing the therapeutic power of writing during difficult times.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about coping with loss, I might say, 'As Joyce Carol Oates once reflected on her writing journey after losing her husband, we find that journaling can help us process our emotions.'
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.
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.
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.
The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
. . . 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.
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I don't know that I should care for a man who made life easy; I should want some one who made it interesting.
To live is not to breathe but to act. It is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence. The man who has lived the most is not he who has counted the most years but he who has most felt life.