Author: Joyce Carol Oates

Cites

• Roger Quilter (1)
  • IN: A Fair Maiden (2010) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: So slowly, slowly, she came up And slowly she came nigh him. And all she said when there she came, Young man, I think you're dying.
    FROM: The Ballad of Barbara Allen, (1921), Poem, UK
• Ashbel Green (1)
  • IN: The Accursed (2013) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: From an obscure little village we have become the capital.
    FROM: NULL, (1783), [NA], US
• St. Augustine (1)
  • IN: The Accursed (2013) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: All diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to demons.
    FROM: NULL, (1783), [NA], Algeria
• Edgar Allan Poe (2)
  • IN: My Heart Laid Bare (1998) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is his own -- the road to immortal renown lies straight, open, unencumbered before him. All that he has to do is write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple -- a few plain words -- "My Heart Laid Bare." But this little book must be true to its title. No man dare write it. No man could write it, even if he dared. The paper would shrivel and blaze at every touch of the fiery pen.
    FROM: NULL, (1848), NULL, US
  • IN: Jack of Spades (2015) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss -- we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain.
    FROM: The Imp of the Perverse, (1845), Short story, US
• Fyodor Dostoevsky (1)
  • IN: Carthage (2014) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Go at once, this very minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss the earth which you have defiled and then bow down to all the world and say to all men, "I am a murderer!" Then God will send you life again.
    FROM: Crime and Punishment, (1866), Novel, Russia
• NULL (4)
  • IN: Carthage (2014) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: I don't feel young now. I think I am old in my heart.
    FROM: American Iraq War Veteran, (2005), Conversation, US
  • IN: My Sister, My Love (2008) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The death of a beautiful girl - child of no more than ten years of age is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.
    FROM: The Aesthetics of Composition, E. A. Pym (a character in Edgar Allan Poe's narrative), (1846), Fictional, NULL
  • IN: Middle Age: A Romance (2001) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Life devours life, but man breaks the cycle, man has memory.
    FROM: "Adam Berendt", (None), Author, NULL
  • IN: The Falls (2004) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: By 1900 Niagara Falls had come to be known, to the dismay of local citizens and promoters of the prosperous tourist trade, as "Suicide's Paradise."
    FROM: A Brief History of Niagara Falls, (1969), Book, US
• Søren Kierkegaard (1)
  • IN: My Sister, My Love (2008) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Despair is a sickness of the spirit, of the self, and accordingly can take three forms: in despair not to be conscious of having a self; in despair not to will to be oneself; in despair to will to be oneself.
    FROM: The Sickness unto Death, (1849), NULL, Denmark
• Emily Dickinson (1)
  • IN: Wild Nights! (2008) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Wild Nights -- Wild Nights! Were I with thee Wild Nights should be Our luxury! Futile -- the Winds -- To a Heart in port -- Done with the Compass -- Done with the Chart! Rowing in Eden -- Ah, the Sea! Might I but moor -- Tonight -- In Thee!
    FROM: #269, (1861), Poem, US
• Martha Scanlan (1)
  • IN: Little Bird of Heaven (2009) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Well love they tell me is a fragile thing It's hard to fly on broken wings I lost my ticket to the promised land Little bird of heaven right there in my hand.
    FROM: Little Bird of Heaven, (2012), Song, US
• Plato (1)
  • IN: Middle Age: A Romance (2001) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: ... I was trying to find out the meaning of certain dreams...
    FROM: Socrates speaking in Plato's Phaedo, (-360), NULL, Italy
• Blaise Pascal (1)
  • IN: Faithless: Tales of Transgression (2001) Fiction, Anthology Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: When one does not love too much, one does not love enough.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, France
• John Webster (1)
  • IN: Them (2000) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: ...because we are poor Shall we be vicious?
    FROM: The White Devil, (1612), Play, UK
• Jorge Luis Borges (1)
  • IN: Wonderland: The Wonderland Quartet (1992) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: We... have dreamt the world. We have dreamt it as firm, mysterious, visible, ubiquitous in space and durable in time; but in its architecture we have allowed tenuous and eternal crevices of unreason which tell us it is false.
    FROM: Labyrinths, (1962), Book, Argentina
• Yeats (1)
  • IN: Wonderland: The Wonderland Quartet (1992) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Knowledge increase unreality.
    FROM: Collected Poems, (1912), Book, Ireland
• Ludwig Wittgenstein (1)
  • IN: I'll take you there (2002) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.
    FROM: Philosophical Investigations, (1953), Book, Austria
• Friedrich Nietzsche (1)
  • IN: Mudwoman (2012) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: What is man? A ball of snakes.
    FROM: Thus Spake Zarathustra, (1885), Novel, Germany
• Walt Whitman (1)
  • IN: Mudwoman (2012) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expore them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.
    FROM: "Here the Frailest Leaves of Me", (1860), Poem, US
• Andre Litovik (1)
  • IN: Mudwoman (2012) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Time is a way of preventing all things from happening at once.
    FROM: "The Evolving Universe: Origin, Age & Fate", (None), Author, NULL
• M. L. Trau (1)
  • IN: The Falls (2004) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The cruel beauty of The Falls That calls to you -- Surrender!
    FROM: "The Ballad of the Niagara", (1931), Author, NULL
• Dr. Moses Blaine (1)
  • IN: The Falls (2004) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The Falls at Niagara, comprising the American, the Bridal Veil and the enormous Horsehoe falls, exert upon a proportion of the human population, perhaps as many as forty percent (of adults), an uncanny effect called the hydracropsychic. This morbid condition has been known to render even the will of the active, robust man in the prime of life temporarily invalid, as if under the spell of a malevolent hypnotist. Such a one, drawn to the turbulent rapids above The Falls, may stand for long minutes staring as if paralyzed. Speak to him in the most forcible tone, he will not hear you. Touch him, or attempt to restrain him, he may off your hand angrily. The eyes of the enthralled victim are fixed and dilated. There may be a mysterious biological attraction to the thunderous force of nature represented by the The Falls, romantically misinterpreted as "magnificent" -- "grand" -- "Godly" -- and so the unfortunate victim throws himself to his doom if he is not prevented. We may speculate: Under the spell of The Falls the hapless individual both ceases to exist and yet wills to become immortal. A new birth, not unlike the Christian promise of the Resurrection of the Body, may be the cruellest hope. Silently the victim vows to The Falls -- "Tes, you have killed thousands of men and women but you can't kill me. Because I am me."
    FROM: A Niagara Falls Physician's Log 1879-1905, (1905), Log, US
• D. H. Lawrence (1)
  • IN: Beasts (2002) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: I love you, rotten, Delicious rottenness. ... wonderful are the hellish experiences, Orphic, delicate Dionysos of the Underworld.
    FROM: "Medlars and Sorb-Apples" from Birds, Beasts and Flowers, (None), Book, UK
• Constantin Stanislavski (1)
  • IN: Blonde (2009) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: In the circle of light on the stage in the midst of darkness, you have the sensation of being entirely alone... This is called solitude in public... During a performance, before an audience of thousands, you can always enclose yourself in this circle, like a snail in its shell.... You can carry it wherever you go.
    FROM: An Actor Prepares (translated by Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood), (None), Book, Russia
• Michael Goldman (1)
  • IN: Blonde (2009) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The acting area is a sacred space... where the actor cannot die.
    FROM: The Actor's Freedom, (1975), Book, US
• Jean-Paul Sartre (1)
  • IN: Blonde (2009) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Genius is not a gift, but the way a person invents in desperate circumstances.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, France
• James Joyce (1)
  • IN: What I Lived For (1994) Novel, American
    EPIGRAPH: He rests. He has traveled.
    FROM: Ulysses, (1922), Novel, Ireland

Cited by

• Jefferson Bass (2)
  • IN: Cut to the Bone (2013) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: And this is the forbidden truth, the unspeakable taboo-that evil is not always repellent but frequently attractive; that it has the power to make of us not simply victims, as nature and accident do, but active accomplices.
    FROM: Reflections on the Grotesque, (1994), Essay, US
  • IN: Cut To The Bone (2013) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: And this is the forbidden truth, the unspeakable taboo-that evil is not always repellent but frequently attractive; that it has the power to make of us not simply victims, as nature and accident do, but active accomplices.
    FROM: “Afterword: Reflections on the Grotesque”, (1994), Essay, US
• Lorrie Moore (1)
  • IN: Birds of America (1998) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: How can I live my life without committing an act with a giant scissors?
    FROM: An Interior Monologue, (1969), Short story, US
• Michael Hemmingson (2)
  • IN: Seven Women: An Erotic Private Investigation (2008) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: In a marriage, you had to lie, it was all a tissue of lies like a play…but living alone necessitated telling the truth.
    FROM: NULL, (None), [NA], US
• Tony Parsons (1)
  • IN: The Slaughter Man (2015) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Crimes reverberate through years and through lives. It is a rare homicide that destroys only one person.
    FROM: After Black Rock, (2013), Article, US
• Peter May (1)
  • IN: Blacklight Blue (2008) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language.
    FROM: I Lock My Door Upon Myself, (1993), Novel, US