Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant. Joan Didion More Quotes by Joan Didion More Quotes From Joan Didion Vanish. Pass into nothingness: the Keats line that frightened her. Fade as the blue nights fade, go as the brightness goes. Go back into the blue. I myself placed her ashes in the wall. I myself saw the cathedral doors locked at six. I know what it is I am now experiencing. I know what the frailty is, I know what the fear is. The fear is not for what is lost. What is lost is already in the wall. What is lost is already behind the locked doors. The fear is for what is still to be lost. You may see nothing still to be lost. Yet there is no day in her life on which I do not see her. Joan Didion wall blue night Let me just be in the ground. Let me just be in the ground and go to sleep. Joan Didion going-to-sleep let-me sleep In fact I no longer value this kind of memento. I no longer want reminders of what was, what got broken, what got lost, what got wasted. There was a period, a long period, dating from my childhood until quite recently, when I thought I did. A period during which I believed that I could keep people fully present, keep them with me, by preserving their mementos, their "things," their totems. Joan Didion broken long people I mean maybe I was holding all the aces, but what was the game? Joan Didion aces games mean Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for nothing in that very well-lit back alley where one keeps assignation with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. One shuffles flashily but in vain through one's marked cards- the kindness done for the wrong reason, the apparent triumph which involved no real effort, the seemingly heroic act into which one had been shamed. Joan Didion real winning kindness 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 self play hands Marriage is memory, marriage is time. Marriage is not only time: it is also, parodoxically, the denial of time. Joan Didion only-time denial memories Nonfiction is more personal for me. It's more personal in that it's more direct, and actually it's always been more direct, even when I first started doing pieces. Joan Didion nonfiction pieces firsts The fancy that extraterrestrial life is by definition of a higher order than our own is one that soothes all children, and many writers. Joan Didion definitions order children I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us. Joan Didion alive trying order It's hard to find a book that's safe to write. Because one always goes to dark or difficult places. Joan Didion dark writing book Writing is always a way, for me, of coming to some sort of understanding that I can't reach otherwise.It forces you to think. It forces you to work the thing through. Nothing comes to us out of the blue, very easily. Joan Didion blue writing thinking I read so ravenously that I would read through whole categories. I was crazy about reading biographies. [...] I think biographies are very urgent to children. Joan Didion crazy reading children I just read everything I could get my hands on. I taught myself to read or my mother taught me. Who knows how I learned to read? It was before I went to school, so I would go to the library and just take things off the shelf. My mother had to sign a piece of paper saying I could take adult books. Joan Didion mother book school Becoming a parent is actually terrifying. A lot of people have that feeling about their dogs. And if you're the kind of person who's going to have that feeling about a dog you're definitely going to have that about a child. Joan Didion dog children people There must be times when everybody writes when they feel they're evading writing. Joan Didion writing feels If you want to understand what you're thinking, you kind of have to work it through and write it. And the only way to work it through, for me, is to write it. Joan Didion want writing thinking You think you have some stable talent which will show no matter what you're writing, and if it doesn't seem to be getting across to the audience once, you can't imagine that moment when it suddenly will. Joan Didion matter writing thinking What you're normally doing as a writer is trying to find the narrative. Joan Didion narrative trying I did consider marriage and motherhood extreme and doomed commitments. Not out of any experience of them as such, but it was simply the way I looked at things. Joan Didion motherhood way commitment
