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
The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Believing in luck reflects a lack of agency and responsibility in one's life choices.
Joyce Carol Oates suggests that relying on luck is a form of cynicism, as it implies that individuals do not have control over their outcomes. Instead of taking responsibility for their actions and decisions, they defer to chance, which can lead to a passive approach to life that ultimately undermines personal growth and achievement.
Themes
CynicismLuckResponsibilityAgencyChoice
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a motivational speech to highlight the importance of effort over reliance on luck.
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.
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
. . . 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
When my brother called to inform me, on the morning of May 22, 2003, that our mother Caroline Oates had died suddenly of a stroke, it was a shock from which, in a way, I have yet to recover.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
Similar quotes
Truth is most beautiful undraped.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
This is what those who haven’t crossed the tropic of grief often fail to understand: the fact that someone is dead may mean that they are not alive, but doesn’t mean that they do not exist.
Julian BarnesRead
Where there is righteousness in the heart, there is harmony in the house; when there is harmony in the house, there is order in the nation; when there is order in the nation, there is peace in the world.
A. P. J. Abdul KalamRead
An earthly kingdom cannot exist without inequality of persons. Some must be free, some serfs, some rulers, some subjects.
Martin LutherRead
No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing, knowing it to be wrong. He is attached to it on the belief of its being right; and when he sees it is not so, the prejudice will be gone.
Thomas PaineRead
I never close a door on any other religion. Most of the time, some part of it makes sense to me. I don't believe everyone has to chant just because I chant. I believe all religion is about touching something inside of yourself.
Tina TurnerRead