A Quote by Joyce Carol Oates

The worst thing: to give yourself away in exchange for not enough love. — © Joyce Carol Oates
The worst thing: to give yourself away in exchange for not enough love.
The fascinating thing about standard economic stories is exactly that: they assume that everybody wants that kind of closure. That all human relations are forms of exchange, because if everything is an exchange then it's true that we're both equals. We walk up, I give you something, you give me something, and we walk away. Or I give you something, you don't give me something right now, and you owe me. So if we have any ongoing relationships at all, it's because somebody is in debt.
Prescription for Life-long Happiness: Purpose enough for satisfaction; Work enough for sustenance; Sanity enough to know when to play and rest; Wealth enough for basic needs; Affection enough to like many and love a few; Self-respect enough to love yourself; Charity enough to give to others in need; Courage enough to face difficulties; Creativity enough to solve problems; Humor enough to laugh at will; Hope enough to expect an interesting tomorrow; Gratitude enough to appreciate what you have; Health enough to enjoy life for all its worth.
Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that and walk away. But that's hard
How beautiful you are! You are more beautiful in anger than in repose. I don't ask you for your love; give me yourself and your hatred; give me yourself and that pretty rage; give me yourself and that enchanting scorn; it will be enough for me.
Love is when you find that thing, when you want to give more than you want to take. When you find the things that you love the most and you want to give those away, that's love. It's when you want somebody to be happier than yourself, but then once you make them happy, it makes you happier.
Debt is not just a money thing. It's about owing and being owed. Money is just one thing you can exchange. You can exchange good deeds, you can exchange revenge, you can exchange murders.
If you're going to live in a community, you have to refrain from killing one another and stealing from one another. You must have honor and honesty in your dealings with one another. But I think the deeper thing that we need to do is to become so fully human that we don't grasp at life; we give life away. We give love away. We give being away. That is the ultimate work of religion.
To overcome any form of adversity, to not give up, to not give up on yourself, your dreams, to not sequester yourself away from people - that's the most important thing to do with your life.
I think that educators are in sales. Essentially, what you are doing is making an exchange with your class. You're saying, 'Give me your attention. In exchange, I'll give you something else.' The cash register is not ringing. It's not denominated in dollars or cents or euros, but it is a form of sales in a way. It is an exchange.
The humble, simple souls, who are little enough to see the bigness of God in the littleness of a Babe, are therefore the only ones who will ever understand the reason of His visitation. He came to this poor earth of ours to carry on an exchange; to say to us, as only the Good God could say: 'you give me your humanity, and I will give you my Divinity; you give me your time, and I will give you My eternity; you give me your broken heart, and I will give you Love; you give me your nothingness, and I will give you My all.
You've got to love yourself first, and until you value yourself enough and love yourself enough to know that, you can't really have a healthy relationship.
When we give our minds and our responsibility away, we give our lives away. If enough of us do it, we give the world away and that is precisely what we have been doing throughout known human history. This is why the few have always controlled the masses.
I think the worst thing you can do is take an arrogant approach and not give people enough content to wrap their heads around.
You take the thing that is the worst thing that could have happened to you, the worst challenge in your life, and you turn it into fuel. You don't give up. And that's what Gotham is about.
When you give away a little piece of your heart, you're giving away the only thing you can give away, which, after you do, you got more left than you had before you gave some of it away.
Every time you have sex, you give away a little piece of your heart, and you give that away too many times and there's just nothing left and you've given away the most important part of yourself.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!