Of the widow's countless death-duties there is really just one that matters: on the first anniversary of her husband's death the widow should think I kept myself alive.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
I was trying not to be happy, hopeful. I did not believe I deserved happiness or even hope, if you knew my soul.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses a struggle with feelings of unworthiness regarding happiness and hope.
Joyce Carol Oates reflects on a personal internal conflict where she feels undeserving of happiness and hope due to her self-perception and inner turmoil. The quote suggests a deep-seated belief that one's past or soul somehow disqualifies them from experiencing joy, highlighting how self-worth can greatly influence emotional well-being.
Themes
HappinessHopeSelf-WorthSoulDeserving
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about overcoming personal struggles, this quote can illustrate the journey towards recognizing one's worth.
More from Joyce Carol Oates
All quotes →I never really knew I wanted to 'be' a writer, but I was always writing from a very young age. It became more conscious as an ideal when I was in my twenties.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
I'm drawn to write about upstate New York in the way in which a dreamer might have recurring dreams. My childhood and girlhood were spent in upstate New York, in the country north of Buffalo and West of Rochester. So this part of New York state is very familiar to me and, with its economic difficulties, has become emblematic of much of American life.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
My writing is often a way of 'bearing witness' for others who lack the education and the opportunity to tell their own stories, so I hope that my writing won't be affected too much by my personal life.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
. . . there is a wish in the heart of mankind to be distracted and confused. Truth is but one attraction, and not always the most powerful.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
Similar quotes
Remember that happiness is as contagious as gloom. It should be the first duty of those who are happy to let others know of their gladness.
Maurice MaeterlinckRead
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough, To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough, To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough, To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment—what is this, then? I do not ask any more delight—I swim in it, as in a sea.
Walt WhitmanRead
A little thing, like children putting flowers in my hair, can fill up the widening cracks in my self-assurance like soothing lanolin.
Sylvia PlathRead
What is without us has no connection with happiness, only so far as the preservation of our lives and health depends upon it. . . . Happiness springs immediately from the mind.
Benjamin FranklinRead
A string of excited, fugitive, miscellaneous pleasures is not happiness; happiness resides in imaginative reflection and judgment, when the picture of one's life, or of human life, as it truly has been or is, satisfies the will, and is gladly accepted.
George SantayanaRead
People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.
Anton ChekhovRead