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
Where there must be a choice, a girl will choose Daddy. Even if you are Mommy, you concede that this must be so: you remember when you were a girl, too.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the bond between daughters and their fathers, suggesting that girls have an innate preference for their fathers during key choices.
Joyce Carol Oates highlights the complex emotional landscape of familial relationships, particularly the unique bond between fathers and daughters. This quote reflects on the idea that, in moments of choice, a girl often feels a strong inclination to turn to her father, which mothers can understand as they too once experienced similar feelings. It suggests a universal truth about the special connection that often exists between daughters and their dads, rooted in affection and support.
Themes
FatherDaughterFamilyRelationshipsBond
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech at a family reunion, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of a father-daughter relationship.
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
Similar quotes
She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.
Jane AustenRead
And it was just the three of us - three bodies and two people - the three who knew what had happened and too many layers between all of us too much keeping us from one another.
John GreenRead
I wouldn't be the man I am today without the woman who agreed to marry me 20 years ago
Barack ObamaRead
The less you demand total fulfillment from relationships, the more you can appreciate them for the beautiful tapestries they are, in which absolute and relative, perfect and imperfect, infinite and finite are marvelously interwoven. You can stop fighting the shifting tides of relative love and learn to ride them instead. And you come to appreciate more fully the simple, ordinary heroism involved in opening to another person and forging real intimacy.
John WelwoodRead
Enjoy everything. Need nothing. Needing someone is the fastest way to kill a relationship .. The greatest gift you can give someone is the strength and the power not to need you, to need you for nothing.
Neale Donald WalschRead
I missed you even when I was with you. Thatβs been my problem. I miss what I already have, and I surround myself with things that are missing.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead