Joan
American essayist Joan Didion, New York City, 17th March 2006.
gettyimages.ca
“You were meant to show spirit, kill the rattlesnake, keep moving forward,” she once told me. “It meant being left alone and leaving others alone. It is regarded by members of my family as the highest form of human endeavor.”
Sara Davidson • The Didion Files
LARPing towards Bethlehem
buttondown.com
Joan is always the vibe.
And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.
Joan Didion • Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays
“Was I the problem? Had I always been the problem?”
“I believed that I could keep people fully present, keep them with me, by preserving their mementos, their ‘things,’ their totems,” she wrote. “In fact they serve only to make clear how inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here.”
Author Joan Didion in 1987.
gettyimages.ca
“That’s it. It’s the expectations that are unstated – they can never ever be met, because they can never really be known. There’s always the possibility of some greater expectation.”