We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

― Joan Didion, The White Album

“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

“I don't know what I think until I write it down.”
― Joan Didion 

 

“Do not whine... Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone.”
― Joan Didion, Blue Nights 

 

“People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called *character,* a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to the other, more instantly negotiable virtues.... character--the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life--is the source from which self-respect springs.”
― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem