QuoteProject
The written word, obviously, is very inward, and when we're reading, we're thinking. It's a sort of spiritual, meditative activity. When we're looking at visual objects, I think our eyes are obviously directed outward, so there's not as much reflective time. And it's the reflectiveness and the spiritual inwardness about reading that appeals to me.
Joyce Carol Oates
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Reading engages our minds in a reflective and meditative process that fosters inner thought.

Joyce Carol Oates highlights the introspective nature of reading compared to visual experiences. While reading stimulates deep thinking and spiritual reflection, engaging the mind in a way that encourages contemplation, visual stimuli tend to draw our focus outward, leading to a more superficial engagement. This distinction illustrates the unique value of written words as tools for inner exploration and understanding.

Themes

ReadingReflectionSpiritualMeditationThought

In practice

Example use cases

During a lecture on literature, this quote can be used to illustrate the depth of thought that reading encourages.

More from Joyce Carol Oates

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 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

It is true that when you make a boy educated, it gives benefit to one family but when you make a girl educated, its benefit goes to two families. Another important fact is that the children of an educated woman do not remain uneducated.
Ram Nath KovindRead
I never heard one word in Pixar about, 'Will kids get this?' I don't think it's important that they get everything. I think that it's important that they get engaged, interested.
Brad BirdRead
My first program taught me a lot about the errors that I was going to be making in the future, and also about how to find errors. That's sort of the story of my life, making errors and trying to recover from them. I try to get things correct. I probably obsess about not making too many mistakes.
Donald KnuthRead
I don't know where to start," one [writing student] will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O' Connor said that anyone who has survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life. Maybe your childhood was grim and horrible, but grim and horrible is Okay if it is well done. Don't worry about doing it well yet, though. Just get it down.
Anne LamottRead
Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
Edward GibbonRead
Teaching that impacts is not head to head, but heart to heart.
Howard G. HendricksRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.