I don't lead a writer's life. And I think that can be a source of suspicion and irritation to some people. — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.” — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs. — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“...some events in life would remain beyond my ability to control or manage them. Some events would just happen.” — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Why do you always have to be right. Why do you always have to have the last word. For once in your… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“1966 and 1968 were a world removed from each other in the political and cultural life of the United States . . .” — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
I lead a very conventional life. I don't lead a writer's life. And I think that can be a source of suspicion… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Grief, when it comes, is nothing we expect it to be. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“I was not going to Honolulu because I wanted to see life reduced to a short story. I was going to Honolulu… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“Only the survivors of a death are truly left alone. The connections that made up their life--both the deep connections and the… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
The apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe the illusion will live here in only the most… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
The fancy that extraterrestrial life is by definition of a higher order than our own is one that soothes all children, and… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“Aging and its evidence remain life's most predictable events, yet they also remain matters we prefer to leave unmentioned, unexplored.” — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“Raised to believe that her life would be, as her great-grandmother's was said to have been, one ceaseless round of fixed and… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“I offer you a second way of approaching the moment where everything in your life just stops, this one from the actor… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs. Self-respect is something… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Throw yourself into the convulsions of the world. I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't believe progress… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Although I have felt compelled to write things down since I was five years old, I doubt that my daughter ever will,… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“This is my attempt to make sense of the period that followed, weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember? How… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“I learned to find equal meaning in the repeated rituals of domestic life. Setting the table. Lighting the candles. Building the fire.… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
What I want to tell you today is not to move into that world where you're alone with yourself and your mantra… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“Quintana's christening was in 1966, this Christian Dior show was two years later, 1968: 1966 and 1968 were a world removed from… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
My own fantasies of what life would be like at 24 tended to the more spectacular. — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Aging and its evidence remain lifes most predictable events, yet they also remain matters we prefer to leave unmentioned, unexplored. — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Was there ever in anyone's life span a point free in time, devoid of memory, a night when choice was any more… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“Was there ever in anyone's life span a point free in time, devoid of memory, a point when choice was any more… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
The apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe the illusion real live here in only the most… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
“There was silence. Something real was happening: this was, as it were, her life. If she could keep that in mind she… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters… — Joan Didion Copy Share
I work every day. Sometimes I don't accomplish anything every day, but if I don't work every day, I get depressed and get afraid… — Joan Didion Copy Share
California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension. — Joan Didion Copy Share
“Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember? How much of… — Joan Didion Copy Share
I no longer want reminders of what was, what got broken, what got lost, what got wasted. — Joan Didion Copy Share
My mother 'gave teas' the way other mothers breathed. Her own mother 'gave teas.' All of their friends 'gave teas,' each involving butter cookies… — Joan Didion Copy Share
I'm not very interested in people. I recognize it in myself - there is a basic indifference toward people. — Joan Didion Copy Share
“Was there ever in anyone's life span a point free in time, devoid of memory, a point when choice was any more than sum… — Joan Didion Copy Share
“Research to date has shown that, like many other stressors, grief frequently leads to changes in the endocrine, immune, autonomic nervous, and cardiovascular systems;… — Joan Didion Copy Share
“By the end of the week she was thinking constantly about where her body stopped and the air began about the exact point in… — Joan Didion Copy Share
“I just can't see the upside in this," I heard myself say by way of explanation. Later he said that if John had been… — Joan Didion Copy Share
I read so ravenously that I would read through whole categories. I was crazy about reading biographies. [...] I think biographies are very urgent… — Joan Didion Copy Share
To those of us who remained committed mainly to the exploration of moral distinctions and ambiguities, the feminist analysis may have seemed a particularly… — Joan Didion Copy Share
