I was raised an Episcopalian. And I did not and I don't believe that anyone is looking out for me personally. — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
It took me a couple of years after I got out of Berkeley before I dared to start writing. That academic mind-set… — 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
I have a theatrical temperament. I'm not interested in the middle road - maybe because everyone's on it. Rationality, reasonableness bewilder me. — 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
I can remember, when I was in college, irritating deeply somebody I was going out with, because he would ask me what… — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
The truth is, it's easier for me to write than talk... to express the state I'm in at any time. — Joan Didion Copy Share Image
The clothes chosen for me as a child had a strong element of the Pre-Raphaelite, muted greens and ivories, dusty rose, what… — 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
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
