"If we do not respect ourselves, we are……" — Joan Didion
"If we do not respect ourselves, we are on the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out—since our self-image is untenable—their false notions of us… We play roles doomed to failure before they are begun, each defeat generating fresh despair at the urgency of divining and meeting the next demand made upon us."
—
Joan Didion
★
★
★
★
★
0.0 avg (0 ratings)
204 Quotes by Joan Didion
Joan Didion has 204 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
-
The impulse for much writing is homesickness. You are trying to get back home, and in your writing you are…
-
Despite our preparation, indeed, despite our age, [the death of a parent] dislodges things deep in us, sets off reactions…
-
In the early years, you fight because you don't understand each other. In the later years, you fight because you…
-
To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position…
-
Writing is the act of saying "I," of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying "listen to me, see it…
-
My writing is a process of rewriting, of going back and changing and filling in. in the rewriting process you…
-
People tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one…
-
It is impossible to think of Howard Hughes without seeing the apparently bottomless gulf between what we say we want…
-
Americans are uneasy with their possessions, guilty about power, all of which is difficult for Europeans to perceive because they…
-
Throw yourself into the convulsions of the world. I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't…
-
New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and…
-
To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is, a dissatisfaction with self.
See all 204 quotes by Joan Didion »
More Begun Quotes
This quote is filed under Begun Quotes,
one of 706 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
See all 706 Begun Quotes »
