Joan Didion (born December 5, 1934) is 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,...
It kills me when people talk about California hedonism. Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento. Joan Didion
It kills me when people talk about California hedonism. Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento.
We tell ourselves stories in order to live. Joan Didion
We tell ourselves stories in order to live.
New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself. Joan Didion
New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself.
I never had faith that the answers to human problems lay in anything that could be called political. I thought the answers, if there were answers, lay someplace in man's soul. Joan Didion
I never had faith that the answers to human problems lay in anything that could be called political. I thought the answers, if there were answers, lay someplace in man's soul.
We imagine things - that we wouldn't be able to survive, but in fact, we do survive. We have no choice, so we do it. Joan Didion
We imagine things - that we wouldn't be able to survive, but in fact, we do survive. We have no choice, so we do it.
The truth is, it's easier for me to write than talk... to express the state I'm in at any time. Joan Didion
The truth is, it's easier for me to write than talk... to express the state I'm in at any time.
In many ways, writing is the act of saying 'I,' of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying, 'Listen to me, see it my way, change your mind.' It's an aggressive, even a hostile act. Joan Didion
In many ways, writing is the act of saying 'I,' of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying, 'Listen to me, see it my way, change your mind.' It's an aggressive, even a hostile act.
Not much about California, on its own preferred terms, has encouraged its children to see themselves as connected to one another. Joan Didion
Not much about California, on its own preferred terms, has encouraged its children to see themselves as connected to one another.
The apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe the illusion real live here in only the most temporary way. Joan Didion
The apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe the illusion real live here in only the most temporary way.
To those of us who remained committed mainly to the exploration of moral distinctions and ambiguities, the feminist analysis may have seemed a particularly narrow and cracked determinism. Joan Didion
To those of us who remained committed mainly to the exploration of moral distinctions and ambiguities, the feminist analysis may have seemed a particularly narrow and cracked determinism.
A pool is water, made available and useful, and is, as such, infinitely soothing to the western eye. Joan Didion
A pool is water, made available and useful, and is, as such, infinitely soothing to the western eye.
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
I have a theatrical temperament. I'm not interested in the middle road - maybe because everyone's on it. Rationality, reasonableness bewilder me.