Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Joan Didion

Quote by Joan Didion

“I myself have always found that if I examine something, it's less scary. I grew up in the West, and we always had this theory that if you saw - if you kept the snake in you eye line, the snake wasn't going to bite you. And that's kind of way I feel about confronting pain. I want to know where it is.”

Quote by Joan Didion

Author

Joan Didion
Joan Didion

Joan Didion is an American author born on December 5, 1934. Known for her distinctive narrative style and profound insights into modern life, her works have gained recognition for their unique perspective and deep understanding of the complexities of contemporary society. more

You May Also Like

“Isn't content also context? I ask him. Your experiences, your circumstances, the time you live in? Consciousness isn't free-floating; it's enmeshed. That is true, he says, but you know, I believe that the modern diaspora--that so many of us find ourselves somewhere else, migrants of some kind--global, multicultural, less rooted, less dependent on our immediate history of family or country to shape ourselves--all of that is preparing us for a looser and freer understanding of ourselves as content whose context can change. Nationalism is on the rise, I say. He nods. That's a throwback. A fear. A refusal of the future. But the future cannot be refused.”

“These were emotions she didn't know how to carry. There was the insult of having her death celebrated when she wasn't even dead. When she was, in fact, amidst them all right now, and only out here because they'd sent killers to fail in her home. But this? To be dying from the poison of those assassins, and while looking for emergency food to survive the injury, to be told by a drunk rich boy with inconvenient hair that she had never really existed? Now their songs made unkind sense to her. This revelry was a kind of fear, for hatred was the fear people let themselves enjoy. Never had she imagined such a thing. Humans were so creative in their disappointments.”