Quite often you want to tell somebody your dream, your nightmare. Well, nobody wants to hear about someone else's dream, good or bad; nobody wants to walk around with it. The writer is always tricking the reader into listening to the dream. Joan Didion More Quotes by Joan Didion More Quotes From Joan Didion It occurs to me that we allow ourselves to imagine only such messages as we need to survive. Joan Didion generosity messages needs Let me tell you one thing about why writers write: had I known the answer to any of these questions I would never have needed to write a novel. Joan Didion novel answers writing When I'm working on a book, I constantly retype my own sentences. Every day I go back to page one and just retype what I have. It gets me into a rhythm. Joan Didion rhythm pages book Although I have felt compelled to write things down since I was five years old, I doubt that my daughter ever will, for she is a singularly blessed and accepting child, delighted with life exactly as life presents itself to her, unafraid to go to sleep and unafraid to wake up. Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss. Joan Didion notebook daughter lonely Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss. Joan Didion notebook lonely children Writers are always selling somebody out. Joan Didion selling journalism writing Late afternoon on the West Coast ends with the sky doing all its brilliant stuff. Joan Didion west-coast afternoon sky Innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself. Joan Didion innocence likes ends Vegas is the most extreme and allegorical of American settlements, bizarre and beautiful in its venality and in its devotion to immediate gratification. Joan Didion vegas devotion beautiful A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image. Joan Didion shapes forever love To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is, a dissatisfaction with self. Joan Didion cures jealousy self Another thing I need to do, when I'm near the end of the book, is sleep in the same room with it...Somehow the book doesn't leave you when you're asleep right next to it. Joan Didion sleep book rooms To believe in'the greater good' isto operate, necessarily, in a certain ethical suspension. Joan Didion ethical certain believe Details are our business as writers. Your heart leaps when you see a detail that can go somewhere Joan Didion leap details heart That no one dies of migraine seems, to someone deep into an attack, an ambiguous blessing. Joan Didion illness pain blessing Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. 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. Joan Didion blessed writing mean Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought? Joan Didion dream writing Was there ever in anyone's life span a point free in time, devoid of memory, a night when choice was any more than the sum of all the choices gone before? Joan Didion time night memories The minute you start putting words on paper you're eliminating possibilities. Joan Didion possibility minutes paper Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. Joan Didion dinner ends life
