Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

The people that always impress me are the ones that are curious about what they're going to do next.

In order always to learn something from others (which is the finest school there can be), I observe in my travels this practice: I always steer those with whom I talk back to the things they know best.

Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn.

You have to do a lot of listening, you don't just learn out of yourself.

One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute.

The idea of finding things out, I hope that will stay with me until I drop.

It's only through listening that you learn, and I never want to stop learning.

I am a curious person and, believe it or not, I really do like to sit back and listen to people's stories.

I'm really a believer in being in situations that feel new and awkward and different. And I love that feeling of being in motion - that sense you find when you're traveling.

If somebody asked me about my inspiration I would say that it's not the peopleand it's not the things, it's travel and experiencing different environments.

We really teach ourselves. If you want to learn, you will always find someone to learn from, be they dead or alive, great or unknown. You learn from everything you see and hear around you - if you are willing to pay attention.

I'm certainly not very book smart, but I started traveling at 16, and it has enriched me in ways I could never begin to explain.

When you stop learning, stop listening, stop looking and asking questions, always new questions, then it is time to die.

I've always been blessed, or cursed, some might say, with an insatiable curiosity, a desire to find something out about a people and a place. That's where it all begins.

When I was younger, I felt it essential to see every movie ever made. Now I feel as though I've got to read every book, see every art show, watch every play and opera and concert and so on. It does not end, and of course there is truth in the old cliche that the more one knows, the more one realizes one knows nothing at all.

Always, through my whole life, I've had a thirst for knowledge.

I love people! I am a people person. I am a very curious human being. I am very interested in what people have to say. I love cultures, too, so I am always traveling.

I hope I'm always learning something.

What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions.

I'm a very strong believer in listening and learning from others.

You always want to learn, you know.

I was always more interested in asking people about themselves than I was telling them about me.

I think, to be a great conversationalist, you need to be interested in being in said conversation. Oddly enough, I think you need to be a great listener, and I do think I'm a good listener. I think that's my asset - I always listen to people when I talk to them, and that's a big thing you have to have in life and in podcasts.

Everything I've ever done has been because of travel. Right from leaving Australia to where I am today - it's all been about exchanging different points of view. The most important lesson I've learnt is to look and listen to what's happening around you.

I like new experiences. It's one of the reasons I went to China.