25 Joan Didion Quotes On Life, Death & More
Last updated on January 5th, 2024 at 11:57 am
“Joan Didion” by “David Shankbone“, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
Born in 1934, Joan Didion is a notable essayist, novelist, and screenwriter best known for her literary journalism and memoirs. She began her career by winning a Vogue-sponsored essay contest in the 1960s. Her childhood was filled with instability since her father’s position in the Army required her to move around the country frequently.
Her ideas, writings, perspectives, and opinions revolve around the country’s moral collapse and cultural instability. Social and individual disintegration is a recurring theme in her work. Her writings, which characterised American subcultures for mainstream audiences, brought her to the pinnacle of achievement.
‘The White Album,’ ‘The Year Of Magical Thinking,’ ‘We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live,’ and ‘Where Was I From’ are only a few of Didion’s key works. ‘Slouching Towards Bethlehem,’ a non-fiction book by her, was a hit. In 2005, she won ‘The National Book Award for Nonfiction.’ Her book, ‘The Year of Magical Thinking,’ was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Take a look at Joan Didion quotes and ideas from her illustrious career.
Joan Didion Quotes On Life
As a child, Joan spent most of her time reading and learning. Much of these accounts for her relocating phase due to her father’s profession. Here are some Joan Didion quotes about life.
“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.”
JOAN DIDION
SOURCE: THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING
“Aging and its evidence remain life’s most predictable events, yet they also remain matters we prefer to leave unmentioned, unexplored.”
JOAN DIDION
“There was silence. Something real was happening: this was, as it were, her life. If she could keep that in mind she would be able to play it through, do the right thing, whatever that meant.”
JOAN DIDION
“Character – the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life – is the source from which self-respect springs.”
JOAN DIDION
“The fancy that extraterrestrial life is by definition of a higher order than our own is one that soothes all children, and many writers.”
JOAN DIDION
SOURCE: FACEBOOK
“I don’t lead a writer’s life. And I think that can be a source of suspicion and irritation to some people.”
JOAN DIDION
“I lead a very conventional life.”
JOAN DIDION
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”
JOAN DIDION
SOURCE: FACEBOOK
Joan Didion Quotes On Death
Joan has perfectly described grief and mourning in her book, ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’. Many people consider it the best book for grieving people. It revolved around her real-life experiences when she lost her husband. Here are some Joan Didion quotes that will give you strength in difficult times.
“I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us.”
JOAN DIDION
“To the average observer I would have appeared to fully understand that death was irreversible.”
JOAN DIDION
“The elapsed time indicated that the time spent at New York Hospital had been, as I had thought, just bookkeeping, hospital procedure, the regularization of a death.”
JOAN DIDION
“I did not want to finish the year because I know that as the days pass, as January becomes February and February becomes summer, certain things will happen.”
JOAN DIDION
“My image of John at the instant of his death will become less immediate, less raw. It will become something that happened in another year.”
JOAN DIDION
“I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.”
JOAN DIDION
Self Respect Joan Didion Quotes
“Self-respect: Its Source, Its Power,” a seminal article by Didion, was initially published in Vogue in 1961. Didion wrote the essay when the magazine was about to go to press to fill a void caused by another writer’s failure to produce a piece on the same topic. She wrote it to a precise character count rather than a word count or a line limit. Read on to these Joan Didion quotes on self-respect.
“I am what I am. To look for reasons is beside the point.”
JOAN DIDION
SOURCE: FACEBOOK
“Self-respect is a question of recognizing that anything worth having has a price.”
JOAN DIDION
SOURCE: SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM
“I have come to see, we knew not the smallest fraction of what there was to know.”
JOAN DIDION
“The future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past.”
JOAN DIDION
“Innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself.”
JOAN DIDION
“To do without self-respect, on the other hand, is to be an unwilling audience of one to an interminable documentary that details one’s failings, both real and imagined, with fresh footage spliced in for every screening.”
JOAN DIDION
“To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness.”
JOAN DIDION
Joan Didion is an excellent example of someone who took a bad circumstance and turned it into something positive. Her education, knowledge about books, and work experience contributed to her becoming a successful writer. She has not only authored books, but she has also created and written scripts. What’s the most important thing you learned from these Joan Didion quotes and sayings?
You can also check out these 30 Inspirational Sonia Sotomayor Quotes On Justice & More!
Naveen Kumar
Naveen Kumar is a writer and has a thing for collecting quotes and sharing them with people. Naveen is a space enthusiast. When he is not spreading good vibes or motivating people through quotes, you can find him sipping coffee while reading classic literature or on a long road drive.
