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.
Loneliness is like starvation: you don't realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Loneliness can go unnoticed until one finds meaningful connection, similar to recognizing hunger only when eating.
Joyce Carol Oates draws a poignant comparison between loneliness and starvation, emphasizing how people often underestimate the depth of their emotional needs. Just as one might not recognize physical hunger until consuming food, individuals may not realize their longing for connection and companionship until they actively seek it. This metaphor highlights the importance of relationships in fulfilling the emotional void that loneliness creates.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on mental health awareness, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of community.
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.
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.
Similar quotes
We talk about feelings. And about sex. And about bodies, and their gratification, violation, repair, decoration, deferred, maybe permanently deferred, mortality. Feelings are a bodily thing, and respecting them is called, is, kindness.
Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like Braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, or tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.
Over time as most people fail the survivor's exacting test of trustworthiness, she tends to withdraw from relationships. The isolation of the survivor thus persists even after she is free.
Language... has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone.
Don't quarrel with your parents even if you are on the right.
It is very hard to not be able to engage with people in a real and honest way because they either want something from me, or they see me as something that I simply am not.