Joan Didion Quotes

Joan Didion
Joan Didion
American Author
Born: Dec 5, 1934
Always Life Me People Think You
Related authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald Frederick Douglass Helen Keller Henry David Thoreau Joyce Meyer Mark Twain Og Mandino Zig Ziglar
To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect. Joan Didion
Great Self-Respect Respect Free Power Others Back Ourselves Lies Give Singular Expectations Us
It kills me when people talk about California hedonism. Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento. Joan Didion
Christmas Me People Spent About Sacramento Never Talk California Talks Anybody Who
The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs. Joan Didion
Life Self-Respect Responsibility Own Willingness Accept Springs Source Which
Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. Joan Didion
Life You Dinner Sit Down Changes Life Changes Instant Know Ends Fast
I no longer want reminders of what was, what got broken, what got lost, what got wasted. Joan Didion
Broken Lost Reminders Longer Got Want Wasted
A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image. Joan Didion
Own Claims Shapes He Remembers Most His Itself Forever Place Loves Radically Whoever Hardest Image Belongs
We all survive more than we think we can. Joan Didion
Think More Survive Than
Nothing I read about grief seemed to exactly express the craziness of it; which was the interesting aspect of it to me - how really tenuous our sanity is. Joan Didion
Me Grief Nothing Our Exactly About Seemed Read How Which Interesting Craziness Really Aspect Sanity Express
Self-respect is a question of recognizing that anything worth having has a price. Joan Didion
Self-Respect Worth Recognizing Having Price Question Anything
We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. Joan Didion
Thought Too Could Never Never Forget Soon Forget Things
We imagine things - that we wouldn't be able to survive, but in fact, we do survive. We have no choice, so we do it. Joan Didion
No Choice Able Fact Survive In Fact To Survive Choice Things Imagine
Ask anyone committed to Marxist analysis how many angels dance on the head of a pin, and you will be asked in return to never mind the angels, tell me who controls the production of pins. Joan Didion
Me You Mind Dance Will Analysis Tell Angels Marxist Never Head Return How Pin Pins Committed Controls Anyone Ask Asked Production Who Many
New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself. Joan Didion
Love Money Power Dream City Mysterious Instead Mere New Perishable Shining Itself York Infinitely New York Romantic Notion
We tell ourselves stories in order to live. Joan Didion
Live Ourselves Tell Order Stories
I have always wanted a swimming pool and never had one. Joan Didion
Pool Swimming Never Had Always Wanted Swimming Pool
Writing nonfiction is more like sculpture, a matter of shaping the research into the finished thing. Novels are like paintings, specifically watercolors. Every stroke you put down you have to go with. Of course you can rewrite, but the original strokes are still there in the texture of the thing. Joan Didion
You Writing Matter Finished Research Down Every Stroke Strokes More Shaping Put Like Course Nonfiction Still Go Texture Rewrite Sculpture Original Paintings Novels Specifically Thing Watercolors
To believe in 'the greater good' is to operate, necessarily, in a certain ethical suspension. Joan Didion
Good Believe Operate Greater Greater Good Suspension Ethical Certain Necessarily
My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. Joan Didion
Best People Best Interests Runs Only Small Physically Tend Counter Advantage Am Forget Reporter Inarticulate Interests Presence
A pool is water, made available and useful, and is, as such, infinitely soothing to the western eye. Joan Didion
Water Made Pool Eye Soothing Western Infinitely Available Useful
Hemingway was really early. I probably started reading him when I was just eleven or twelve. There was just something magnetic to me in the arrangement of those sentences. Because they were so simple - or rather they appeared to be so simple, but they weren't. Joan Didion
Me Simple Reading Those Something Rather Magnetic Him Because Arrangement Were Just Just Something Sentences Really Twelve Appeared Hemingway Eleven Early Started Started Reading
We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience. Joan Didion
Experience Shifting Live Our Entirely Writers Freeze Ideas Learned Narrative Line Imposition Which Disparate Actual Actual Experience Images
I never had faith that the answers to human problems lay in anything that could be called political. I thought the answers, if there were answers, lay someplace in man's soul. Joan Didion
Faith Man Soul Political Problems Thought Someplace Lay Could Never Had Answers Were Human Anything
It took me a couple of years after I got out of Berkeley before I dared to start writing. That academic mind-set - which was kind of shallow in my case anyway - had begun to fade. Joan Didion
Me Writing Before Mind-Set Took Berkeley Dared Out Kind Case Shallow Had Fade Academic Couple Got Years Begun After Anyway Which Start
The minute you start putting words on paper you're eliminating possibilities. Joan Didion
You Words Paper Possibilities Minute Putting Start
When we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something... but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, that is when we join the fashionable madmen. Joan Didion
Thinking Ourselves Moral Madmen Something Imperative Join Deceiving Want Fashionable Start
The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. Joan Didion
Down Way Those Tries Only Compulsion Compulsive Write Share Accidentally Inexplicable Itself Any Impulse Justify Useful Who Things
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