Blonde Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

Death is just the last scene of the last act.

Erotic: meaning you're "desired." For madness is seductive, sexy. Female madness. So long as the female is reasonably young and attractive.

Beauty is a question of optics. All sight is illusion.

For what is delusion but the prelude to hurt. And what is hurt but the prelude to rage.

Her problem wasn't she was a dumb blonde, it was she wasn't a blonde and she wasn't dumb.

Dear girl! Life is addictive. Yet we must live.

Your punishment if you're a woman. Not loved enough.

I'm nobody's daughter now. I'm through with that.

There was a Greek philosopher who taught that, of all things, not to have been born is the sweetest state. But I believe sleep is the sweetest state. You're dead, yet alive. There's no sensation so exquisite.

Yet I will make you all love me and I will punish myself to spite your love.

There is something female about being dead.

Yet there was something gratifyingly real about being called a bitch, a whore, a blond tramp. Where so much was a dreamy haze, anything promising to be real was bracing.

Know what 'celebrity' is kid? Being paid to bullshit the rest of your natural life.

All actors are whores. They want only one thing: to seduce you.

Acting is the loneliest profession I know.

For madness must be punished in a world in which mere sanity is prized. The revenge of the ordinary upon the gifted.

An actress wants to be seen. An actress wants to be loved. By multitudes of people, not just one lone man.

As if whoever it was held that camera was her closest friend. Or maybe it was the camera that was her closest friend.

What is "technique" but the absence of passion?

I would know of myself through the witnessing and naming of others. As Jesus in the Gospels is only seen and spoken of and recorded by others. I would know my existence and the value of that existence through others' eyes, which I believed I could trust as I could not trust my own.

Men grow cold as girls grow old And we all lose our charms in the end. How prettily Lorelei Lee sang these mordant lyrics!

For, in movie logic, aesthetics has the authority of ethics: to be less than beautiful is sad, but to be willfully less than beautiful is immoral.

Bullshit! Li-ar! Your mother and father are dead like everybody else. Everybody is dead.

The fundamental truth of my life whether in fact it was truth or a burlesque of truth: when a man wants you, you’re safe.

But so like Hollywood people, who played at the emotions they truly felt. Or maybe the emotions they truly felt could only be expressed in play?

An adult man possesses the power to enter your soul. A boy has no power, The power to hurt, maybe, but not the power to enter your soul

That glass sliver in the heart. Amid a fluttery-delicious Benzedrine rush, virtually every remark made to you is freighted with destiny, a sweet-painful stab in the heart. And Benzedrine and champagne, what a combination! The Blond Actress was only just discovering what everybody else in Hollywood knew.

In our household, which was essentially under an evil spell, my father 'Chaplin' was all the magic. A great man draws magic into himself, like reverse lightning. There's nothing to spare for anyone else.

but was this funny? was this funny? was this funny? why was this funny? why was Sugar Kane funny? why were men dressed as women funny? why were men made up as women funny? why were men staggering in high heels funny? why was Sugar Kane funny, was Sugar Kane the supreme female impersonator? was this funny? why was this funny? why is female funny? why were people going to laugh at Sugar Kane & fall in love with Sugar Kane? why, another time? why would Sugar Kane Kovalchick girl ukulelist be such a box office success in America? why dazzling-blond girl ukulelist alcoholic Sugar Kane Kovalchick a success? why Some Like It Hot a masterpiece? why Monroe's masterpiece? why Monroe's most commercial movie? why did they love her? why when her life was in shreds like clawed silk? why when her life was in pieces like smashed glass? why when her insides had bled out? why when her insides had been scooped out? why when she carried poison in her womb? why when her head was ringing with pain? her mouth stinging with red ants? why when everybody on the set of the film hated her? resented her? feared her? why when she was drowning before their eyes? I wanna be loved by you boop boopie do! why was Sugar Kane Kovalchick of Sweet Sue's Society Syncopaters so seductive? I wanna be kissed by nobody else but you I wanna! I wanna! I wanna be loved by you alone but why? why was Marilyn so funny? why did the world adore Marilyn? who despised herself? was that why? why did the world love Marilyn? why when Marilyn had killed her baby? why when Marilyn had killed her babies? why did the world want to fuck Marilyn? why did the world want to fuck fuck fuck Marilyn? why did the world want to jam itself to the bloody hilt like a great tumescent sword in Marilyn? was it a riddle? was it a warning? was it just another joke? I wanna be loved by you boop boopie do nobody else but you nobody else but you nobody else

Marx had famously denounced religion as the opiate of the people, now it was Fame that was the opiate of the people;

You are indeed a victim of our culture's mercenary exploitation of feminine innocence.

First marriage, and nothing so sweet! You don’t know it at the time.

Were you wounded when your marriage collapsed? When your love collapsed? Or does love never “collapse,” only just fade gradually away?

Maybe all there is is just the next thing maybe all there is is just the next thing maybe all there is is just just the next just the next thing maybe all there is is just the next maybe all there is is is just is just the next thing Roslyn's words stuck in her head & she could not stop repeating them Maybe all there is is just the next thing like a Hindu mantra & she was a yogin murmuring her secret prayer Maybe all there is just the next thing She thought, That's a comfort!

Never can you climb over this wall, you’re not strong enough; girls aren’t strong enough; girls aren’t big enough; your body is fragile and breakable, like a doll; your body is a doll; your body is for others to admire and to pet; your body is to be used by others, not used by you; your body is a luscious fruit for others to bite into and to savor; your body is for others, not for you.

unless it was enough for these worshipers to bask in the knowledge that, though invisible to them and in every way inaccessible to them, the swarthy handsome Ex-Athlete and the beautiful Blond Actress might at that very moment be coupling like Shiva and Shakti, unmaking and making the Universe?

I live now for my work. I live for my work. I live only for my work. One day I will do work deserving of my talent & desire. One day. This I pledge. This I vow. I want you to love me for my work. But if you don't love me I can't continue my work. So please love me! - so I can continue my work. I am trapped here! I am trapped in this blond mannequin with the face. I can only breathe through that face! Those nostrils! That mouth! Help me to be perfect. If God was in us, we would be perfect. God is not in us, we know this for we are not perfect. I don't want money & fame. I want only to be perfect. The blond mannequin Monroe is me & is not me. She is not me. She is what I was born. Yes I want you to love her. So you will love me. Oh I want to love you! Where are you? I look, I look & there is no one there.

Ohhhhh." A lush-bodied girl in the prime of her physical beauty. In an ivory georgette-crepe sundress with a halter top that gathers her breasts up in soft undulating folds of the fabric. She's standing with bare legs apart on a New York subway grating. Her blond head is thrown rapturously back as an updraft lifts her full, flaring skirt, exposing white cotton panties. White cotton! The ivory-crepe sundress is floating and filmy as magic. The dress is magic. Without the dress the girl would be female meat, raw and exposed. She's not thinking such a thought! Not her. She's an American girl healthy and clean as a Band-Aid. She's never had a soiled or a sulky thought. She's never had a melancholy thought. She's never had a savage thought. She's never had a desperate thought. She's never had an un-American thought. In the papery-thin sundress she's a nurse with tender hands. A nurse with luscious mouth. Sturdy thighs, bountiful breasts, tiny folds of baby fat at her armpits. She's laughing and squealing like a four year-old as another updraft lifts her skirt. Dimpled knees, a dancer's strong legs. This husky healthy girl. The shoulders, arms, breasts belong to a fully mature woman but the face is a girl's face. Shivering in New York City mid-summer as subway steam lifts her skirt like a lover's quickened breath. "Oh! Ohhhhh." It's nighttime in Manhattan, Lexington Avenue at 51st Street. Yet the white-white lights exude the heat of midday. The goddess of love has been standing like this, legs apart, in spike-heeled white sandals so steep and so tight they've permanently disfigured her smallest toes, for hours. She's been squealing and laughing, her mouth aches. There's a gathering pool of darkness at the back of her head like tarry water. Her scalp and her pubis burn from the morning's peroxide applications. The Girl with No Name. The glaring-white lights focus upon her, upon her alone, blond squealing, blond laughter, blond Venus, blond insomnia, blond smooth-shaven legs apart and blond hands fluttering in a futile effort to keep her skirt from lifting to reveal white cotton American-girl panties and the shadow, just the shadow, of the bleached crotch. "Ohhhhhh." Now she's hugging herself beneath her big bountiful breasts. Her eyelids fluttering. Between the legs, you can trust she's clean. She's not a dirty girl, nothing foreign or exotic. She's an American slash in the flesh. That emptiness. Guaranteed. She's been scooped out, drained clean, no scar tissue to interfere with your pleasure, and no odor. Especially no odor. The Girl with No Name, the girl with no memory. She has not lived long and she will not live long.

The Playwright had long been fascinated by the strange mercurial personality of the Actor. What is "acting." and why do we respond to "great acting" as we do? We know that an actor is "acting" and yet - we wish to forget that an actor is "acting," and in the presence of talented actors we quickly do forget. This is a mystery, a riddle. How can we forget the actor "acts"? Is the actor "acting" on our behalf? Is the subtext of the actor's "acting" always and forever our own buried (and denied) "acting"?

She understood that a woman’s work inside the home is not work but sacred privilege and duty.

I have no talent, no gift. I have the panting ardor of a workhorse. Yet in time even a workhorse wears out.

Genius is not a gift, but the way a person invents in desperate circumstances.

The aim of theater—Aristotle said it first, and Aristotle said it best—is to arouse profound emotion in the spectator and through this arousal to effect a catharsis of the soul. If there’s

If only there wasn’t the war, and rationing! Meat, butter, and sugar were becoming so scarce. Bucky knew it wasn’t Norma Jeane’s fault but in a childlike way he seemed to blame her: men blamed women for meals that weren’t fully satisfying as they blamed women for sex that wasn’t fully satisfying; that’s the way the world is and Norma Jeane Glazer, a bride of less than a year, knew this fact by instinct. But when Bucky liked a meal, he exuded enthusiasm and it was thrilling to her to watch him eat, as a long time ago (it seemed: in fact, not many months ago) she’d been thrilled watching her high school teacher Mr. Haring read her poems, aloud or even silently.

Della riendo, diciendo entre jadeos: «¿De qué vale ser una perdida y una puta si a los treinta años no tienes nada?». Y a Norma Jeane le faltaban

I broke a mirror and the pieces floated to China Goodbye!

The tone we want to avoid is melodrama.

Because it was silver foil and not a living rose, it could never rot and die.

Women who were qualified to fly bombers weren’t allowed to fly them. Women who died in service weren’t allowed funerals with military honors like men.

Norma Jeane could understand: men had to have rewards for being men, for risking their lives as men, and these rewards were women. Women at home, waiting for their men. You couldn’t have women fighting alongside men in the war, you couldn’t have women-men. Women-men were freaks. Women-men were obscene. Women-men were lesbians, “lezzies.” A normal man wanted to strangle a lezzie or fuck her till her brains spilled out and her cunt leaked blood. Norma Jeane had heard Bucky and his friends ranting about lezzies, who were worse, almost, than fairies, fags, “preverts.” There was something about these sick, sorry freaks that made a normal healthy man want to lay hands on them and administer punishment.

Never did I experience my face and body from the inside (where there was numbness like sleep), only through the mirror, where there was sharpness and clarity. In that way I could see myself.

there was the world-you-see-with-your-eyes and the world-through-the-camera. The one was nothing, the other was everything. So in time Mother learned to perceive me through the mirror. Even to smile at me. (Not eye-to-eye! Never.) In the mirror it’s like a camera eye, almost you can love.

His face looked as if it had been poached in a milky sauce.

and either you're born to this crazed life and are thrilled by it, however exhausted by it, or you are not born to such a life, and exhaustion is most of what you feel, and finally you wish to feel nothing

They despised me! Your so-called friends. No. It was you who despised yourself.

there's a horror in happy masks, no one will acknowledge

I guess I never believed that I deserved to live. The way other people do. I needed to justify my life every hour. I needed your permission.

I was not a tramp or a slut. Yet there was the wish to perceive me that way. For I could not be sold any other way I guess. And I saw that I must be sold. For then I would be desired, and I would be loved.

A flesh merchant. Lose your looks, lose your youth and sex appeal, Shinn's gone. Stung, Norma Jeane had an impulse to ask And you, Cass? What about you?

When our hearts melt in love even the angels above are envious of us.

In the caverns of the sky The spirits of the departed lie. But this is a lie. It's inly just we don't want them to die.

The Gemini were twin brothers named Castor and Pollux. They were warriors and one of them, Castor, was killed. Pollux missed his brother so badly, he begged Jupiter, the king of the gods, to be permitted to give his own life as a ransom for his brother. Jupiter was moved to pity - sometimes, if you efface yourself enough and get them in the right mood, the old-bastard gods come through - and allowed Castor and Pollux both to live, but not at the same time. Castor lived one day in the heavens, while Pollux was in Hades, or hell; then Pollux lived one day in the heavens, while Castor was in hell. They alternated life and death but they didn't see each other. Then Jupiter took pity on them again. He rewarded their love for each other by placing them up there in the stars together. See? The Gemini. Forever.

You play till you have nothing left to lose.

Roslyn was like a beautiful vase that has been broken and shattered yet by patience, craft, and cunning meticulously restored, fragment by fragment, bit by bit, with tweezers and glue, you see only the restored vase and have no knowledge of the shattered vase, still less of the monomaniacal energy that has gone into its restoration. The illusion of wholeness, of beauty. Delusion?

Mother once said Fear is born of hope if you could excise hope from your life you would excise fear

Why hurt another person? It's enough to be hurt yourself.

Never can you climb over this wall, you're not strong enough; girls aren't strong enough; girls aren't big enough; your body is fragile and breakable; like a doll; your body is a doll; your body is for others to admire and to pet; your body is to be used by others, not used by you; your body is luscious fruit for others to bite into and savor; your body is for others, not for you. The little girl began to cry! The little girl's heart was broken.

Smiling meant not that you understood but you were happy not-understanding.

She wasn’t fleeing her own life (though her life had grown baffling to her, as adult life does to those who live it) but instead easing into a parenthesis within that life, stopping time as a child might arrest the movement of a clock’s hands: by force.

I’m having such a good time in life, guess I’m gonna be punished!

C had had too many women. He’d gorged himself, & he’d vomited.

Help help! Help I feel Life coming closer

Imagine que en el mismo espacio que ocupa usted con su cuerpo verdadero, existe otro cuerpo, el cuerpo imaginario de su personaje, que usted ha creado en su mente. MICHAEL CHEKHOV

This day of revelation Norma Jeane would recall through her life of thirty-six years, sixty-three days, which was to be a life outlived by Gladys as a doll baby might be fitted snug inside a larger doll ingeniously hollowed out for that purpose.

I would know of myself through the witnessing and naming of others. As Jesus in the Gospels is only seen and spoken of and recorded by others. I would know my existence and the value of that existence through others’ eyes, which I believed I could trust as I could not trust my own.

It had well be a dream, no one would believe me anyway.

I don't need to shut my eyes to go blind... When your blind time passes strangely Floating and dreamy in a way speeded up like the Time Traveler apon his machine.

No hagas caso a tu abuela, cariño. Ella es de los tiempos del cine mudo y nosotras, del sonoro.

Tu castigo si eres mujer. Que no te amen lo suficiente.

Si hubiera podido, habría echado a Warren a patadas y se habría quedado con Norma Jeane. Pero, naturalmente, no podía hacerlo. Vivimos en un mundo de hombres y una mujer debe traicionar a sus congéneres para sobrevivir.

historia.