Joan Didion Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“We all survive more than we think we can.”

“I went on a book tour immediately after 9/11. I was due to leave the following Wednesday, so I just did. It was an amazing thing, because planes hadn't been flying very many days, and I got on this plane and went to San Francisco, and the minute that plane lifted above the clouds, I felt this incredible sense of lightness.”

“When I went to San Francisco in that cold late spring of 1967, I did not even know what I wanted to find out, and so I just stayed around a while and made a few friends.”

“The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs.”

“Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought?”

“We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.”

“You have to pick the places you don't walk away from.”

“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.”

“I don't think anybody feels like they're a good parent. Or if people think they're good parents, they ought to think again.”

“Novels are like paintings, specifically watercolors. Every stroke you put down you have to go with. Of course you can rewrite, but the original strokes are still there in the texture of the thing.”