Don’t labor over a little cameo work in which every word is to be perfect. Technique holds a reader from sentence to sentence, but only content will stay in his mind.

More quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

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"In love there are two things– bodies and words."

- Joyce Carol Oates

Love

"The journal is the ideal place of refuge for the inner self because it constitutes a counterworld: a world to balance the other."

- Joyce Carol Oates

Balance

"The relationship between parents and children, but especially between mothers and daughters, is tremendously powerful, scarcely to be comprehended in any rational way."

- Joyce Carol Oates

Relationships

"The best revenge is living well without you."

- Joyce Carol Oates

Healing

"Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul."

- Joyce Carol Oates

Empathy

More Creativity Quotes

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"You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."

- Maya Angelou

Creativity

"Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless."

- Jamie Paolinetti

Creativity

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."

- Herman Melville

Creativity

"I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying."

- Oscar Wilde

Creativity

"Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too."

- Isabel Allende

Creativity