Ten Quotes From Joan Didion

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Joan Didion

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

To free us from the expectations of others,
to give us back to ourselves–
there lies the great, singular
power of self-respect.

Grammar is a piano I play by ear.

Innocence ends when one is stripped
of the delusion that one likes oneself.

A single person is missing for you,
and the whole world is empty

I don't know what I think
until I write it down.

Grief turns out to be a place none of us
know until we reach it.

Memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember.

Water is important to people who do not have it, and the same is true of control.

My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small,
so temperamentally unobtrustive, and so neurotically inarticulate
that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter
to their best interests. And it always does.
That is one last thing to remember:
writers are always selling somebody out.

The next Didion page is  here.

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