Joan Didion quotes

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.

In many ways, 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.' It's an aggressive, even a hostile act.

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.

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

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.

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.

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.

It kills me when people talk about California hedonism. Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento.

Strength is one of those things you're supposed to have. You don't feel that you have it at the time you're going through it.

My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests.

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.

You had to feel the swell change. You had to go with the change. He told me that. No eye is on the sparrow but he did tell me that.

I'm not sure I have the physical strength to undertake a novel.

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.

Grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power.