Carthage Quotes

“She had no existence, in herself. From earliest childhood she had believed this. Rather she was a reflecting surface, reflecting others' perception of her, and love of her.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

“A fear of the unknown: what was that called?
Worse yet: a fear of the known.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

“My bridal gown. So beautiful in design but it was never sewed. So lovely, ivory lace, ivory silk, sheer lace back, pleated bodice and flared skirt never sewed.

My veil, my "train."

(So foolish the bridal train, trailing along the ground, on dirty steps. What possible purpose, beautiful and costly dazzling-white silk so quickly spoiled.)

The bridal design held us captive. My dear mother, and me.

And so, when I was married to my husband it seemed to me a second marriage.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

“I have no inner life. I have no ‘intimate’ life. I am just what I-what to do. I move from one habitation to another like one of those-is it herit crabs? Taking up residence in others shells.
(…)
Others’ shells are fine. You come, and then you go. They’re gone”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

“You who are non-believers rely upon us, to confirm your sense of superiority. You need to imagine us as unchanged, unchangeable.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

“It is required that we must be fiercely beloved by one individual in order to exist: for Sabbath, Haley was that individual.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

“She had paid for these mistakes. (Had she?) But still, you are never fully acquitted of any mistake that involves another, and so the Intern had not been fully acquitted of her mistakes, and her shame of such mistakes.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

“And I like your laugh, Sabbath; it’s inaudible.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

“I know that there are many essential biological differences between the sexes, of course. But not so many ‘culturally-mandated’ differences. In First World countries we’ve evolved beyond mere biology -it isn’t the fate of the human female to be pregnant continously until she wears out and dies.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

“Derailed. In exile. Deeply ashamed, despised. Yet she had so little pride, she was grateful most days simply to be alive.
There is Minimalist art; there are minimalist lives.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

“Not hearing impaired but just not hearing which is a way of not caring.)”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

“But this controversy did not involve the corporal who refused to give thought to what his life had become as a case. God did not think of a man as a case. For a case is to be solved—and a man cannot be solved.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

“In slow drowning waves the knowledge washed over Cressida, her professor did not think that she was so special after all. He didn't know her father Zeno. Was that it?”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage

“he’d come to earth. Hard.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage