Inadequate

Joyce Carol Oates makes me feel inadequate.

From her "Journals 1973-1982":

' "Keeping busy" is the remedy for all ills in America. It's also the means by which the creative impulse is destroyed. '

' The childless couple...can remain romance and love indefinitely, because the sense of being young lovers, still, is never damaged. The couple with children, however, is irreparably altered; one of the issues that contributes to their estrangement is the children-arguing over the children. '

'Do we ever "read" the same book twice? Do we "read" the same book others read?'

She's brilliant, even in journal form. So good I cannot finish it, I fear.