A Quote by Joyce Carol Oates

Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing. — © Joyce Carol Oates
Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing.
Writing is a futile attempt to preserve what disappears moment by moment. All that remains of my mother is what I remember and what I have written for and about her. Eventually that is all that will remain of [my husband] and me. Writing sometimes feels frivolous and sometimes sacred, but memory is one of my strongest muses. I serve her with my words. So long as people read, those we love survive however evanescently. As do we writers, saying with our life's work, Remember. Remember us. Remember me.
Those authors who appear sometimes to forget they are writers, and remember they are men, will be our favorites.
For some reason at Sundance, more than other festivals that I'm aware of, you find filmmakers rushing to screen works that sometimes aren't completed. In my seven years of programming at Toronto, I'm not aware of any documentaries that went back for serious editing after their premiere - other than those presented as works-in-progress. But at Sundance every year there seems to be a few films that push the deadline so hard that they get taken back to the edit room afterwards.
Art was always my main focus; I fell into writing by accident in the 1980s, writing magazine articles to pay for my studio. I have to put myself into the position of writing; sometimes it doesn't work, and sometimes it works great.
Who are critics? Do they know about music? Have they proved themselves in the field? I remember, when we came up with the music of 'Dil Chahta Hai,' some of the critics said that the songs sounded like jingles.
There are many out there who proudly call themselves critics, but I have come to see that many of those critics have never tested their own skill.
Critics have their purposes, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did.
I'm sure critics have their purpose, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what he did.
I use biography, I use literary connections (as with Platen - this seems to me extremely helpful for appreciating the nuances of Mann's and Aschenbach's sexuality), I use philosophical sources (but not in the way many Mann critics do, where the philosophical theses and concepts seem to be counters to be pushed around rather than ideas to be probed), and I use juxtapositions with other literary works (including Mann's other fiction) and with works of music.
Unlike prose writing, the strange process of writing with pictures encourages associations and recollections to accumulate literally in front of your eyes; people, places, and events appear out of nowhere. Doors open into rooms remembered from childhood, faces form into dead relatives, and distant loves appear, almost magically, on the page- all deceptively manageable, visceral, the combinations sometimes even revelatory.
The problem with literature, with writing, is that it works sometimes in terms of correction of social ills. Other times, it just does not suffice.
I relied mainly on other artists, who I think are smarter than critics, any critics or curators or anybody like that. They really know.
People like ourselves may see nothing wondrous in writing, but our anthropologists know how strange and magical it appears to a purely oral people - a conversation with no one and yet with everyone. What could be stranger than the silence one encounters when addressing a question to a text? What could be more metaphysically puzzling than addressing an unseen audience, as every writer of books must do? And correcting oneself because one knows that an unknown reader will disapprove or misunderstand?
So when we're really addressing issues like poverty, you can't do that without addressing the real driver of some of those, which is stable homes, families. So that's why to me those issues are important. They're not frivolous. They're critical economic issues.
Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos.Persons appear byentering into relationwith other persons.
Marches work, rallies work, civil disobedience works, direct action works, voting works, writing letters works, speaking to churches and schools works, rioting works.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!