"We are repeatedly left, in other words, with……" — Joan Didion
"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 am struck again by the permanent impassibility of the divide. Some people who have lost a husband or a wife report feeling that person's presence, receiving that person's advice. Some report actual sightings, what Freud described in "Mourning and Melancholia" as "a clinging to the object through the medium of a hallucinatory wishful psychosis." Others describe not a visible apparition but just a "very strongly felt presence.""
—
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 Actual Quotes
This quote is filed under Actual Quotes,
one of 1,266 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
-
The fatigue produced on the muscles of the human frame does not altogether depend on the actual force employed in…
— Charles Babbage
-
Where do we say that a cell became a blade of grass, which became a starfish, which became a cat,…
— Michele Bachmann
-
The Canadian run can be no different, at least in terms of actual running.
— Dennis Banks
-
Fishing is boring, unless you catch an actual fish, and then it is disgusting.
— Dave Barry
-
I do love to eavesdrop. It's inspirational, not only for subject matter but for actual dialogue, the way people talk.
— Lynda Barry
-
Percentage margins don't matter. What matters always is dollar margins: the actual dollar amount. Companies are valued not on their…
— Jeff Bezos
-
It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.
— Ambrose Bierce
-
Sure, I suffered a lot. But it's not like the end of the world and it's not who I am.…
— Ben Affleck
-
I've thought for the last decade or so, the only actual place raw truth was seeping through in newspapers was…
— Elayne Boosler
-
The importance to the writer of first writing must be out of all proportion of the actual value of what…
— Elizabeth Bowen
-
Congress acknowledged that society's accumulated myths and fears about disability and disease are as handicapping as are the physical limitations…
— William J. Brennan
-
You don't want flame to hit your food. Flame is bad. Flame does nasty things to food. It makes soot…
— Alton Brown
See all 1,266 Actual Quotes »