Carol Quotes

There are people, primarily women!
who are what I call 'conduits of emotion.' In their company, the half dead can come alive. They need not be beautiful women or girls. It's a matter of blood warmth. The integrity of the spirit." He turned the page of his sketch pad and began anew, whistling thinly through his teeth.
"Thus an icy-cold soul, in the presence of one so blessed, can regain something of his lost self. Sometimes! ~ Joyce Carol Oates

The sexiest thing about a women is her health. When you feel good, everyone is attracted to you. But if you look sick, they'll steer a wild path around you. ~ Carol Alt

It's not about failure; it's about trying something and risking something for attaining your goal. ~ Carol Alt

It's almost impossible to be funnier than the people in Washington. ~ Carol Burnett

All my parents' music came from greatest hits albums. It was like the thought of getting even one bum track was too much for them to handle. ~ Carol Rifka Brunt

Dogs are more loyal. Cats are fickle. ~ Carol Thatcher

There were times when I was more at home in front of millions of people than I was at home. ~ Carol Burnett

My friend once told me
she liked this guy because of his hands
And I found it absurd that anyone
would develop feelings over one feature,
and not care about the rest

It wasn't until you used your hands
to cup the back of my neck the first time we kissed
and I could feel your firm grasp pull me closer,
and my insides exploded
and my head buzzed with bliss.

And the first night you slept over,
you fell asleep with your hand
laid over my stomach
and your fingers felt like a fire
that I didn't mind burning my skin.

The first time we got drunk,
was the first time you played with my hair,
and my god I was hooked,
I'd drink forever if it meant you'd never stop.

And in public you'd hold my hand,
and rub your thumb in little circles
that left me wanting you more,
no matter what you would never let me go,
I was glued to you,
and I honestly didn't mind

When we talked about breaking up,
you saw my lips quiver with fear,
and you brushed over my lips with your fingers
before pulling me into your lap
and you kissed me like never before.
With your hands on my hips
pulling me so close to you,
leaving no space in between us.
It was then I realized I never wanted you to go

Its now that,
I finally understand why hands
were the only feature that mattered. ~ Carol Shlyakhova

I send all my short fiction to 'Ontario Review' because Joyce Carol Oates is associate editor there, and I think she's fantastic. ~ Janet Fitch

To understand how natural it is to feel everything wholeheartedly, think back to a time in your life when you were an emotional "mess" and you allowed yourself to cry. Then, after you cried your last tear, you felt a wonderful sense of relief, release and freedom. You allowed yourself to be real and authentic; that felt so good. ~ Carol Reynolds

Current fashion magazines have become a form of entertainment, and in some cases bizarre art, showing women in outfits that the everyday woman would never wear. The fashion system has not and will never even attempt to teach us the skills and tools to honor our true nature and our unique physical traits so we can express our true beauty. ~ Carol Tuttle

Tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now?
Ah, no! ~ Charles Dickens

There is the expectation that a younger generation has the opportunity to redeem the crimes and failings of their elders and would have the strength and idealism to do so. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Cavort, dear, just cavort ~ Carol Burnett

Some of the world's best athletes didn't start out being that hot. If you have a passion for a sport, put in the effort and see. ~ Carol S. Dweck

If I talk about something I either talk about it or I DO it ... the minute I talk about it it's lost all it's drive and all it's fun. ~ Carol Channing

That's the difference between you and Greta. She has better things to do. She gets involved in clubs, activities. She has friends. But you? You slump around in that room of yours
~ Carol Rifka Brunt

Tragedy is the highest form of art. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

But every redhead's temper has its limitations. ~ Carol Ryrie Brink

My reputation for writing quickly and effortlessly notwithstanding, I am strongly in favor of intelligent, even fastidious revision, which is, or certainly should be, an art in itself. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

None of those things should have mattered, but I guess they did. I guess they were like water. Soft and harmless until enough time went by. Then all of a sudden you found yourself with the Grand Canyon on your hands. ~ Carol Rifka Brunt

When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go. ~ Carol Burnett

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

Stories come to us as wraiths requiring precise embodiments. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

I very much enjoyed doing 'Law & Order,' playing a killer - that was fun, and they had a family feel around the set, so it was a happy show to do even though the subject matter was quite the opposite. ~ Carol Burnett

These were no-man's-lands, limbos of a sort, places where language did not prevail and the only protection was flight, if you could run fast enough; or submission if you couldn't. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Deep down under where his heart resided, strangled up in thorny vines of guilt, anger, fear and longing, there lay something deeper in him, something that he couldn't see but she could. ~ Carol Oates

Betrayal is the deepest wound. Betrayal is what remains of love, when love has gone. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

I received some really bad news. I'm not okay."
A bolt of terror slashed through me. She had some sort of disease, I could tell. She had cancer. I was sure of it. I had a vision of Carol Kingsly in her hospital bed, her limbs withered, her head shaved, looking up at me with sunken eyes. Gad. Looking up at me with the expectation that I would care for her. Me. Somehow now she was my responsibility? We had only been going out for a couple of weeks, I didn't even like her all that much, and still I was on the hook? What were the rules on that? And with whom could I lodge my appeal? ~ William Lashner

Without anyone to talk to, a person is not quite real. Sounds are very important - we are like bats tapping at each other with sounds, making sure there is someone there, groping along. Sounds. Syllables. The beat of music. It is all a curious flowing, which you can hear only when you are silent yourself. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

When you have a child, you start to dream of how this kid will grow up and make you proud. The only thing you can predict with 100% certainty is that the reality will diverge somehow from that dream. Some of our children will disappoint us by not being the scholars we hoped they would be. Some children will disappoint us by not being the athletes we hoped they would be. Some will disappoint us by coming out and telling us they are gay and they won't give us grandchildren ... the real question is not, what book can I read, what technique can I use to raise a perfect child? The real question is how will you handle that gap between the child you dreamt of having and the real child growing up in your home ... What I have learned is that any religion, if you do it wrong, will leave people feeling condemned and dismissed and unworthy and any religion, if you do it right, will leave people feeling cleansed and firmed. (118) Rabbi Harold Kushner ~ Carol Lynn Pearson

The difference between the Japanese and the American is summed up in their opposite reactions to the proverb (popular in both nations), "A rolling stone gathers no moss." Epidemiologist S. Leonard Syme observes that to the Japanese, moss is exquisite and valued; a stone is enhanced by moss; hence a person who keeps moving and changing never acquires the beauty and benefits of stability. To Americans, the proverb is an admonition to keep rolling, to keep from being covered with clinging attachments. ~ Carol Tavris

So this is where the years of maturity deliver us - to this needy, selfish, unwieldy wish to be somebody else's first and primal other. ~ Carol Shields

Great handfuls of her life were being stolen from her and she would never be able to retrieve them. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Poor communities, frequently communities of color but not exclusively, suffer disproportionately. If you look at where our industrialized facilities tend to be located, they're not in the upper middle class neighborhoods. ~ Carol Browner

There's nothing like Nashville for making records. ~ Carol Channing

I could never take the idea of religion very seriously. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Real self-confidence is not reflected in a title, an expensive suit, a fancy car, or a series of acquisitions. It is reflected in your mindset: your readiness to grow. ~ Carol S. Dweck

Move past what holds you back. Happiness lives on the other side of your fears. ~ Carol 'CC' Miller

My mom cooked pot roast with noodles and frozen vegetables. Or she'd make spaghetti or hot dogs, or heat up TV dinners. Before I started modeling at age 19, I was 5'8 and weighed 165 pounds. ~ Carol Alt

I'm a bit frightened of the idea of a full facelift because, when you look in the mirror, you want to look like yourself. ~ Carol Vorderman

( ... ) I could "talk fast"
that's to say, without hesitating, stammering
most of the time
but there were categories of words, sentiments, I could never say, they'd have stuck in my throat. The embarrassment of it even whispering-teasing to Legs for instance 'Yeah you're my heart too!' or 'I love you' or 'I would die for you', nobody ever talked that way, mostly there was just my mother and me and we hardly talked at all. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

When my brother called to inform me, on the morning of May 22, 2003, that our mother Caroline Oates had died suddenly of a stroke, it was a shock from which, in a way, I have yet to recover. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

As nearly two dozen Secret Service agents and members of the military were punished or fired following a 2012 prostitution scandal in Colombia, Obama administration officials repeatedly denied that anyone from the White House was involved. ~ Carol D. Leonnig

It takes courage to wait for a God-scripted love story… ~ Carol Wambui Ngabura

And so he suspected the mayor of easing the budget crunch for sheltering the poor by giving them one-way bus tickets to warmer climates. And that was cold. ~ Carol O'Connell

Obviously the imagination is fueled by emotions beyond the control of the conscious mind. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Seventh Generation's work with Carol Sanford made me a better values-based leader. ~ Jeffrey Hollender

I have a great memory. ~ Carol Burnett

What you call your personality, you know?
it's not like actual bones, or teeth, something solid. It's more like a flame. A flame can be upright, and a flame can flicker in the wind, a flame can be extinguished so there's no sign of it, like it had never been. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

I went along doing the one-salad-a-night routine for a year. And I remember feeling so tired and depressed and irritable. I had no personal life. I was always flying someplace - weekends, holidays, vacations. Dinners at night were no fun because I couldn't eat. ~ Carol Alt

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? wh ~ Joyce Carol Oates

The act of sending a letter is an act of generosity, even if, in retrospect, it might seem reckless. Why regret one's generosity? Why regret one's impulsiveness, one's misjudgment of others? The inevitable discovery that someone is selling letters you'd written in trust is simply to discover an obvious human truth: there are those who don't cherish us as we'd cherished them, and had wished to be cherished by them. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Like the philosophy credited to Jack Dempsey: The more punches a man takes, the closer he is to the end. Because a man has only a fixed number of punches he can take in his lifetime. Pa? ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Art is fueled by rebellion: the need, in some amounting to obsessions, to resist what is, to defy one's elders, even to the point of ostracism; to define oneself, and by extension one's generation, as new, novel, ungovernable. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

It is easier to lure a fish than to hit it over the head with a club. ~ Carol Kendall

When you hear somebody with balls, that's me. ~ Carol Kaye

People with the growth mindset know that it takes time for potential to flower. ~ Carol S. Dweck

I am Itzapoca. Long ago the Mayans worshiped me as a god. Today I am forgotten, a stone head half-buried in the jungle. Yet I have endured for ages, far longer than any puny modern structure built from steel and concrete. Long before the era of hydraulic cranes, my followers lifted me to the top of this lush green slope where I sit looking down on the shining blue waters of the bay. ~ Carol Storm

The reasons for Emma's illness and for her decision to allow life in, rather than die, are intertwined and involve the beginnings of her feelings of belonging, of safety and of competence to be in the world. ~ Carol Lee

Looking out of a hospital window is different from looking out of any other. Somehow you do not see outside. ~ Carol Grace

The women's movement is taking a different form right now, and it is because it has been so effective and so successful that there's a huge counter movement to try to stop it, to try to divide women from one another, to try to almost foment divisiveness. ~ Carol Gilligan

It is important and salutary to speak of incomprehensible things,' they said, and so we did till dawn. ~ Carol Emshwiller

Our house was made of stone, stucco, and clapboard; the newer wings, designed by a big-city architect, had a good deal of glass, and looked out into the Valley, where on good days we could see for many miles while on humid hazy days we could see barely beyond the fence that marked the edge of our property. Father, however, preferred the roof: In his white, light-woolen three-piece suit, white fedora cocked back on his head, for luck, he spent many of his waking hours on the highest peak of the highest roof of the house, observing, through binoculars, the amazing progress of construction in the Valley - for overnight, it seemed, there appeared roads, expressways, sewers, drainage pipes, "planned" communities with such names as Whispering Glades, Murmuring Oaks, Pheasant Run, Deer Willow, all of them walled to keep out intruders, and, yet more astonishing, towerlike buildings of aluminum and glass and steel and brick, buildings whose windows shone and winked like mirrors, splendid in sunshine like pillars of flame; such beauty where once there had been mere earth and sky, it caught at your throat like a great bird's talons, taking your breath away. 'The ways of beauty are as a honeycomb,' Father told us, and none of us could determine, staring at his slow moving lips, whether the truth he spoke was a happy truth or not, whether even it was truth. ("Family") ~ Joyce Carol Oates

The whole point of marriage is to encourage your partner's development and have them encourage yours. ~ Carol S. Dweck

It's one of the things I love about the sea, the way you can see weather afar. It's like looking at the future. ~ Carol Birch

I can't say I was a very successful sorority girl. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

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

The second-sweetest set of three words in English is 'I don't know.' ~ Carol Tavris

Gratitude is the root of all transformation and abundance. ~ Carol Starr Taylor

Sometimes it's easier to pretend everything's fine than admit differently. But the problem is it becomes habit-forming until it's our new reality. Then we're really just living a lie. ~ Carol Mason

What can I learn from this? What will I do next time I'm in this situation? ~ Carol S. Dweck

Why you can't trust women. Even young girls. Can't know what the fuck they are thinking, can't know what they are feeling, can't know how they will surprise you except to know it won't be a surprise you will like. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Unlike lions and dogs, we are a dissenting animal. We need to dissent in the same way that we need to travel, to make money, to keep a record of our time on earth and in dream, and to leave a permanent mark. Dissension is a drive, like those drives. ~ Carol Bly

It's not impossible for a woman - a Black woman - to become President. ~ Carol Moseley Braun

You are speaking of something sacred, something holy. Love is patient and kind. It does not envy or boast. It casts out pride, selfishness and anger. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres and never fails. ~ Carol Devine

Storming was one of her main modes of transportation." In reference to teenager Heather in "Carry The One ~ Carol Anshaw

The writer understands how deeply mysterious the 'familiar' really is. How strangely opaque, what we've seen a thousand times. And how inconsolable a loss, when the taken-for-granted is finally taken from us. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Freaky kids like us can't ever be normal- Tyler says smugly- Our generation is some new kind of "evolutionary development", my shrink says- "Normal" is just "average", not cool. My latest diagnosis is "A.P.M", Acute Premature Melancholia", usually an affliction of late middle age, they think is genetic since Ty Senoir has had it all his life, too.
You look if you might be A.P.M, too, Sky: that kind of pissed-off mopey look in your face like you swallowed something really gross and can't spit it out. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Hester, in the dark conclusion of Hawthorne's brooding novel, reassumes the Puritan mantle….Hawthorne thus captures the catch-22 of feminism: the very woman who is able to envision a new order of living is, by the same token, unable, since the passion that enables her also adulterates her in the eyes of the Puritans. Released from goodness, she is imprisoned in badness, within the framework of the puritanical order. But her mind is free to question the order. ~ Carol Gilligan

Early publication can be a dubious blessing: we all know writers who would give anything not to have published their first book, and go about trying to buy up all existing copies. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

There was at least some small beauty in what we'd done. ~ Carol Rifka Brunt

When I wrote 'We Were The Mulvaneys,' I was just old enough to look back upon my own family life and the lies of certain individuals close to me, with the detachment of time. I wanted to tell the truth about secrets: How much pain they give, yet how much relief, even happiness we may feel when at last the motive for secrecy has passed. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

I like to think that I'm a sort of poet for our times. ~ Carol Ann Duffy

Beauty takes courage. Courage itself takes courage. ~ Carol Shields

Sometimes we try to hard to be something we are not, perhaps being ourselves is harder than we think. ~ Carol Brearley

You know that quilt you are making at school? Each child makes a square, correct?"
"Yes," I said.
"And none of you knows what the other squares will look like. Perhaps that is the way God works. We are each like one of the squares. We choose how our own square will look, we choose the colour, the design, all of that. But when we are put in with the other squares we might be in the middle, at the edge, make the whole look one way or another. ... And it's when we interact with all the other squares that the unexpected can happen. And it can change the way our square is viewed. ... It's a mixture of our choices and God's choices. And it all makes a pattern, but only God can see the big pattern. ~ Carol Matas

Then Carol slipped her arm under her neck, and all the length of their bodies touched fitting as if something had prearranged it. Happiness was like a green vine spreading through her, stretching fine tendrils, bearing flowers through her flesh. She had a vision of a pale white flower, shimmering as if seen in darkness, or through water. Why did people talk of heaven, she wondered ~ Patricia Highsmith

We inhabit ourselves without valuing ourselves,
unable to see that here, now,
this very moment is sacred;
but once it's gone –
its value is incontestable. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

I am a film buff. ~ Carol Lynley

I don't teach literature from my perspective as 'Joyce Carol Oates.' I try to teach fiction from the perspective of each writer. If I'm teaching a story by Hemingway, my endeavor is to present the story that Hemingway wrote in its fullest realization. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Vegetarianism is an act of the imagination. It reflects an ability to imagine alternatives to the texts of meat. ~ Carol J. Adams

I loved pretending to be a middle-aged Jewish woman. I just wanted to do what I saw Gilda Radner and Carol Burnett doing. But I'm not a particularly good impressionist. It was never my strong suit. ~ Jenny Slate

There's an old Jewish saying: An enemy is someone whose story you do not know. (22) ~ Carol Lynn Pearson

I have beliefs, of course, like everyone-but I don't always believe in them. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Unfamiliar places could be more dangerous than familiar places, unexpectedly. The boy had been discovering that an unfamiliar place was more easily "haunted" than a familiar place simply because there was less there to distract the memory. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

The students with growth mindset completely took charge of their learning and motivation. ~ Carol S. Dweck

Tell me,' I said. 'Tell me when you notice me.'
I notice you going into church,' Joshua said. 'I notice your hair, how blond it is. But how in some light it looks like it has red in it. I notice the way you smell when we're close. And the way you walk when we're headed home from church and your family gets out of the Temple first. I notice how you are with your family and how you hold your little sisters. I've seen you stand out on your doorstep and look across the desert. I've watched you walk toward the Compound fence and then on past that. You've been walking for years. ~ Carol Lynch Williams

Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997 - the iPod came out 4 years later. 3 years after that is the first time his market cap grew. It took 7 years. ~ Carol Bartz

Let them write angry letters to the Government-
they haven't been loved enough, there has been some crime ~ Joyce Carol Oates