Joan Didion
Joan Didion
Joan Didionis an American author best known for her novels and her literary journalism. Her novels and essays explore the disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos, where the overriding theme is individual and social fragmentation. A sense of anxiety or dread permeates much of her work...
generosity needs messages
It occurs to me that we allow ourselves to imagine only such messages as we need to survive.
memories thinking remember
Memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember.
mother writing ideas
I was four or five, and my mother gave me a big black tablet, because I kept complaining that I was bored. She said, "Then write something. Then you can read it." In fact, I had just learned to read, so this was a thrilling kind of moment. The idea that I could write something - and then read it!
life-changing ordinary existentialism
Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.
writing order stories
We tell ourselves stories in order to live.
focus stories demand
Short stories demand a certain awareness of one's own intentions, a certain narrowing of the focus.
eye people different
If you are doing a piece about somebody, even if you admire them tremendously and express that in the piece, express that admiration, if they're not used to being written about, if they're civilians, they're not used to seeing themselves through other people's eyes. So you will always see them from a slightly different angle than they see themselves, and they feel a little betrayed by that.
suicide order multiple-choice
We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.
complaining more-time alone-time
Do not whine... Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone.
mean writing thinking
I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.
marine sea maps
I've always been fascinated with marine geography and how deep things are. I was spellbound by the tsunami, for example, by the actual maps. There is just something about the unseen bottom of the sea that has always fascinated me, how deep is it.
memories nodding never-forget
We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.
people nodding attractive
We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.
life respect spring
The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs.