Extenuating Circumstances Quotes

“One of my lifetime addictions, to this bitterly black steaming-hot liquid, would begin at this hour, in such innocence.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Extenuating Circumstances

“left the house in time to catch the bus. Lorraine called goodbye after her as always but Tippi scarcely glanced back, and her voice was flat, almost inaudible—“Bye, Mom.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Extenuating Circumstances

“Where there is passion there is argument.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Extenuating Circumstances

“She was murmuring, “It’s all right, dear, it will be all right, I love you.” For that was the one thing she knew, amid all that she didn’t.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Extenuating Circumstances

“A life consists of many facts, implacable facts, you do not want to know.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Extenuating Circumstances

“And had rarely thought about since.) It was ridiculous to stand here, so astonished, so slow-witted, so perversely vulnerable . . . yet what other attitude was appropriate, what other attitude would not violate the queer sense of the sacred, the otherworldly, that the house had evoked?”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Extenuating Circumstances