Quotessence
Home / Authors / Joan Didion
Joan Didion

Joan Didion Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllWritingThinkingPeopleIfsWantWayGriefSelfKnowsSelf Respect

Famous Joan Didion Quotes

“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.”

WellsRealSelfReasonDoneWinningDifficultEffortKindnessInvolvedRemainsIntentionOneselfListsTricksCardsDeceptionTriumphVainHeroicLitSelf DeceptionGood IntentionsAlleysWrong ReasonsPlatitudesShuffleHeroic ActsBack Alleys
Book:Slouching towards Bethlehem
Create image

“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.”

PeopleWantKindLongFactsValuesLostChildhoodBrokenPeriodsDatingRemindersTotemsMemento
Book:Blue Nights (Enhanced Edition)
Create image

“When I began writing these pages I believed their subject to be children, the ones we have and the ones we wish we had, the ways in which we depend on our children to depend on us, the ways in which we encourage them to remain children, the ways in which they remain more unknown to us than they do to their more casual acquaintances; the ways in which we remain equally opaque to them.”

WayWritingChildrenWishSubjectsDependsPagesOur ChildrenAcquaintanceCasualOpaque
Author:Joan Didion
Create image

“You have your wonderful memories," people said later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. Memories are the Westlake uniforms in the closet, the faded and cracked photographs, the invitations to the weddings of the people who are no longer married, the mass cards from the funerals of the people whose faces you no longer remember. Memories are what you no longer want to remember.”

PeopleIfsWantSaidPastRememberFacesMemoriesGoneWonderfulMarriedMassPhotographDefinitionsCardsFuneralUniformsClosetsInvitationsSolaceCrackedFadedTimes PastWonderful Memories
Book:Blue Nights
Create image

“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.”

KnowsMayStillsNightLostLinesBehindsSawsDoorsWallSixBlueFrightenedFadesLockedAshesNothingnessBrightnessCathedralsFrailtyLost YouLocked Doors
Book:Blue Nights (Enhanced Edition)
Create image

“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. It is the instinct which drove America to the Pacific, all through the nineteenth century, the desire to be able to find a restaurant open in case you want a sandwich, to be a free agent, live by one's own rules.”

WantAbleAmericaDesireWealthSecretCasesCenturyAbsolutesInstinctSakeAgentsRestaurantsPrivacyLive BySandwichesPacificNineteenth CenturyMobilityPersonal FreedomMoney And PowerFree Agents
Author:Joan Didion
Create image

“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.”

MayLongFeelingsMightAgeParentMemoriesGoneCuttingPeriodsBedOceanSilentSurpriseDepthReactionsDespitePreparationGrievingMourningLong AgoRecollectionSubmarines
Author:Joan Didion
Create image

“It is impossible to think of Howard Hughes without seeing the apparently bottomless gulf between what we say we want and what we do want, between what we officially admire and secretly desire, between, in the largest sense, the people we marry and the people we love. In a nation which increasingly appears to prize social virtues, Howard Hughes remains not merely antisocial but grandly, brilliantly, surpassingly, asocial. He is the last private man, the dream we no longer admit.”

PeopleThinkingMenWantLoveDreamLastsDesireNationsSocialVirtueImpossibleSeeingRemainsAdmirePrizeAntisocial
Author:Joan Didion
Create image