We imagine things — that we wouldn't be able to survive, but in fact, we do survive. ... We have no choice,… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
We imagined we knew everything the other thought, even when we did not necessarily want to know it, but in fact, I… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
In theory momentos serve to bring back the moment. In fact they serve only to make clear how inadequately I appreciated the… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
When you write, you're always revealing a difficult part of yourself. It may not be a part of yourself that looks as… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
I was four or five, and my mother gave me a big black tablet, because I kept complaining that I was bored.… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
It occurs to me as I write that this "white light," usually presented dippily (evidence of afterlife, higher power), is in fact… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
But the fact of it was that I liked it out there, a ruin devoid of human vanities, clean of human illusions,… — 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
prepare a little hot tea or broth and it should be brought to them . . . without their being asked if… — 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 Image
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 Image
California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension. — 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 much of… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
I no longer want reminders of what was, what got broken, what got lost, what got wasted. — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
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 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
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
