Water is important to people who do not have it, and the same is true of control. — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
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
We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
I'm not very interested in people. I recognize it in myself - there is a basic indifference toward people. — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
It kills me when people talk about California hedonism. Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento. — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
The West begins where the average annual rainfall drops below twenty inches. Water is important to people who do not have it,… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
New York is full of people . . . with a feeling for the tangential adventure, the risky adventure, the interlude that's… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
I don't think anybody feels like they're a good parent. Or if people think they're good parents, they ought to think again. — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Writing is the act of saying "I," of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying "listen to me, see it my way,… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Most death now happens in hospitals. It's been medicalized. It happens away from where we deal with it directly. And that's a… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people… — 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
I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
I couldn't give away my husband's shoes. I could give away other things, but the shoes - I don't know what it… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
In many ways, writing is the act of saying 'I,' of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying, 'Listen to me, see… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Not many people were speaking truth to power in the '80s. I had a really good time doing it - I found… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Becoming a parent is actually terrifying. A lot of people have that feeling about their dogs. And if you're the kind of… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called *character,* a quality which,… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
If you are doing a piece about somebody, even if you admire them tremendously and express that in the piece, express that… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
We are repeatedly left, in other words, with no further focus than ourselves, a source from which self-pity naturally flows. Each time… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
It is impossible to think of Howard Hughes without seeing the apparently bottomless gulf between what we say we want and what… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
In fact I no longer value this kind of memento. I no longer want reminders of what was, what got broken, what… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
You have your wonderful memories," people said later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
The freeway experience ... is the only secular communion Los Angeles has. Mere driving on the freeway is in no way the… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
People tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
One of the things that happens to people in grief is they secretly think they're crazy, because they realize they are thinking… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Many people I know in Los Angeles believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969, ended at the exact moment… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
A lot of the stories I was brought up on had to do with extreme actions - leaving everything behind, crossing the… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
It is hard for people who have not lived in Los Angeles to realize how radically the Santa Ana figures in the… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
I know something about dread myself, and appreciate the elaborate systems with which some people fill the void, appreciate all the opiates… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
Before I'd written movies, I never could do big set-piece scenes with a lot of different speakers - when you've got twelve… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
When you lose someone, a whole lot of perfectly normal circumstances suddenly take on different meaning. You see it in a different… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
It was the United States of America in the cold late spring of 1967, and the market was steady and the G.N.P.… — 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
![“If you are doing a piece about somebody, even if you admire them tremendously and express that in the piece, express that admiration, if they're not used to being written about, if they're civilians, [...] they're not used to seeing themselves through other people's eyes. So you will always see…” quote by Joan Didion](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/d61/joan-didion-497_admiration_if-you-are-doing-a-piece-about-somebody_2985641.jpg)
