The ability to think for one's self depends upon one's mastery of the language. Joan Didion More Quotes by Joan Didion More Quotes From Joan Didion My writing is a process of rewriting, of going back and changing and filling in. in the rewriting process you discover what's going on, and you go back and bring it up to that point. Joan Didion filling-inprocesswriting 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." Joan Didion mindwritingpeople Americans are uneasy with their possessions, guilty about power, all of which is difficult for Europeans to perceive because they are themselves so truly materialistic, so versed in the uses of power. Joan Didion materialisticpoweruse We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. Joan Didion betrayalnever-forgetforget There was a level on which I believed that what had happened remained reversible Joan Didion happenedlevels 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. To think of 'living' there was to reduce the miraculous to the mundane; one does not 'live' at Xanadu. Joan Didion new-yorkdreamthinking Despite our preparation, indeed, despite our age, [the death of a parent] dislodges things deep in us, sets off reactions that surprise us and may cut free memories and feelings that we thought had gone to ground long ago. We might, in that indeterminate period they call mourning, be in a submarine, silent on the ocean's bed, aware of the depth charges, now near and now far, buffeting us with recollections. Joan Didion cuttingoceanmemories The impulse for much writing is homesickness. You are trying to get back home, and in your writing you are invoking that home, so you are assuaging the homesickness. Joan Didion homewritingtrying 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. Joan Didion walldoorsinspiring A pool is, for many of us in the West, a symbol not of affluence but of order, of control over the uncontrollable. A pool is water, made available and useful, and is, as such, infinitely soothing to the western eye. Joan Didion eyewaterorder To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything. Joan Didion self-respectconfidenceself-esteem California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension. Joan Didion uneasycalifornialoss He was an outsider who lived by his ability to manipulate the inside. Joan Didion manipulateoutsidersability The apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe the illusion will live here in only the most temporary way. Joan Didion californiaeasebelieve On the August night in 1933 when General Gerardo Machado, then president of Cuba, flew out of Havana into exile, he took with him five revolvers, seven bags of gold, and five friends, still in their pajamas. Joan Didion augustpresidentnight The secret point of money and power in America is neither the things that money can buy nor power for power's sake but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy. Joan Didion mobilitysecretamerica Burroughs's voice is hard, derisive, inventive, free, funny, serious, poetic, indelibly American. Joan Didion poeticvoiceserious There's a lot of landscape I never would have described if I hadn't been homesick. The impulse was nostalgia. Joan Didion homesicklandscapenostalgia Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. Joan Didion magical-thinkingturnsgrief You aren't sure if you're making the right decision - about anything, ever. Joan Didion right-decisiondecisionifs
