All Joan Didion Quotes
- I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be Already Lost
- The last sentence in a piece is another adventure. It should open the piece up. Adventure
- Writing nonfiction is more like sculpture, a matter of shaping the research into the finished thing. Finished
- Writers are only rarely likable. Funny
- We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Advised
- California: The west coast of Iowa. California
- I found earthquakes, even when I was in them, deeply satisfying, abruptly revealed evidence of the scheme in action. That the schemes could destroy the… Abiding
- Quite often you want to tell somebody your dream, your nightmare. Well, nobody wants to hear about someone else's dream, good or bad; nobody wants… Always Tricking
- I was in love with New York. I do not mean 'love' in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the… Any
- It occurs to me as I write that this "white light," usually presented dippily (evidence of afterlife, higher power), is in fact precisely consistent with… Afterlife
- A young woman with long hair and a short white halter dress walks through the casino at the Riviera in Las Vegas at one in… Begin
- We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images. Disparate
- You have to make sure you have the characters you want. That's really the most complicated part. Character
- I don't write for catharsis; I have to write to understand. Catharsis
- The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it Compulsive
- We are repeatedly left, in other words, with no further focus than ourselves, a source from which self-pity naturally flows. Each time this happens I… Actual
- I have always wanted a swimming pool and never had one. Always Wanted
- Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States. Cloudless
- Aging and its evidence remain lifes most predictable events, yet they also remain matters we prefer to leave unmentioned, unexplored. Aging
- It Was Once Suggested to Me that, as an Antidote to Crying, I Put My Head in a Paper Bag. Antidote
- I have never started a novel - I mean except the first, when I was starting a novel just to start a novel - I've… Except
- Somehow writing has always seemed to me to have an element of performance. Always Seemed
- This book is called "Blue Nights" because at the time I began it I found my mind turning increasingly to illness, to the end of… Began
- It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends. Beginnings
- We all have the same dreams. All