Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

I feel so guilty about the state of young people today. And I say that because our generation fought for everything. We fought to sit down at a counter, to sit on a bus. They were left with nothing to fight for.

We should be the natural home for younger voters. But today we're not. Because too often we sound like people who just don't like contemporary Britain.

I accept the calling of my generation to give our children the America that was given to us, with opportunity for the young and security for the old - and I know that we are ready.

Our age gives the more receptive among the young such a sense of social responsibility that one is inclined at times to fear that social interests may encroach upon individual development, that a knowledge of all the ills affecting the community may act as too powerful a damper on the joys of youth.

I keep telling these millennials it's all about them to get into politics and start making things happen. They don't care about whether or not someone is gay. They don't care to see contraception taken away or want to even discuss it. They're going forward, not backward.

My father's generation of Saudi men are more liberal than the men of my generation. But with women, it's the opposite.

We hold accountable all the pussy-footing Presidential candidates, Democrats, Republicans, independents, who pretend our children and our cities do not exist.

A city cannot survive if it does not educate its young.

The vital question in agitation at the present day is a question of Education. We do not seek to establish a new order of things through violence. Any order of things established through violence, even though itself superior to the old, is still a tyranny. What we have to do is to propose, for the approval of the nation, an order of things which we believe to be superior to that now existing, and to educate men by every possible means to develop it and act in accordance with it.

Everything we do as teachers has moral overtones.

As soon as the War of Independence terminated, the attention of the statesmen and patriots, who had conducted us triumphantly through the storms of the revolution, was turned to the revival of letters, the restoration of the lights of education, and the establishment of the Temple of Liberty upon the foundation of knowledge

What is sad for women of my generation is that they weren’t supposed to work if they had families. What were they to do when the children were grown — watch raindrops coming down the windowpane?

Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.

Since the cosmic process of evolution is amoral, there is no guarantee that good will win out over evil, that human society will thrive rather than fail.

Many a dormant moral issue is brought to life by economic pressure.

In this world where force is still rampant one holds one's breath when one looks into the faces of young people. If only they can succeed where we of the older generation have failed!

After a contentious campaign season filled with divisive rhetoric, we are now hearing from our members and in the news media about incidents of bigotry and harassment within our communities.  From children acting out in schools to adults participating in violent acts, it is clear that our nation is struggling in the wake of this election. During times like these, our nation’s 120,000 public, academic, school and special libraries are invaluable allies inspiring understanding and community healing. Libraries provide a safe place for individuals of all ages and backgrounds and for difficult discussions on social issues.  Our nation’s libraries serve all community members, including people of color, immigrants, people with disabilities, and the most vulnerable in our communities, offering services and educational resources that transform communities, open minds and promote inclusion and diversity.

While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.

It's always been a subtext of our secular optimism that you solve the economic problem, and all other things sort of take care of themselves. Well, we seem to be doing well on the economic side - we are doing very well - and the other things are not solving - they're compounding.

I think young people can make such an extraordinarily important difference in making this world a better place.

One of the problems in America is that everybody focuses on their own narrow little bit of the problem without connecting punishment and prevention together, without connecting the schools and the police together, without connecting the pediatricians and the social workers together.

I sometimes think, as bad as things seem for progressives in this world in the Trump era, it's worse than we think it is.

Whatever your age, think about the young generation. And try to give them back the future being taken from them.

Nothing will be beyond our reach when we make the flames of creating positive deeds flare up across the country with the virtues of the young vanguard as the initial spark and bring into full play the mounting vigour of the millions of young people.

One in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a wage.