Americans are uneasy with their possessions, guilty about power, all of which is difficult for Europeans to perceive because they are themselves so truly materialistic, so versed in the uses of power.
Joan Didion

Call me the author.
Joan Didion

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.
Joan Didion

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

A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.
Joan Didion

Was there ever in anyone's life span a point free in time, devoid of memory, a night when choice was any more than the sum of all the choices gone before?
Joan Didion

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

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.
Joan Didion