"After my husband died, I could not write much— I could not concentrate. I was too exhausted..."

“After my husband died, I could not write much— I could not concentrate. I was too exhausted most of the time even to contemplate writing. But I did take notes— not for fiction, but for a journal, or diary, of this terrible time. I did not think that I would ever survive this interlude.”

- Joyce Carol Oates