Joan Didion Quotes
Quotes to Explore
-
I started composting in 1970 by taking my food scraps out behind where I lived and burying them in a hole next to the railroad tracks - and green things started to grow there!
-
My grandfather was an autoworker, and I have a weapon he manufactured to protect himself from the company that he would carry to work. It's a big iron pipe with a hunk of lead on the head. I think about how far we've come as companies from those days, where workers had to protect themselves from the company.
-
The path of progress cuts through the four-way intersection of the moral, medical, religious and political - and whichever way you turn, you are likely to run over someone's deeply held beliefs.
-
The Founding Fathers of our nation believed in the people. They created a new nation based on the radical notion that the people could be free and trusted - that the nation would be great if you trusted the people to be good.
-
Craft is part of the creative process.
-
In terms of competitiveness of new global environment, Kenya will have absolutely no choice but to tackle the most important constraint to its development: it has been corruption.
-
When you go out of your country and meet people, you get a wider perspective.
-
If you work with big stars, then they become the lead actors. It's not that I don't want to do films with big stars, but I would rather do the films where I get the title roles.
-
Now that we have a bit of money, it is nice to get gifts for people. Before I was getting and not really giving.
-
I am not scared of anyone. I will write and publish my books.
-
I happen to find motherhood a very natural state, but I know a lot of other people don't.
-
I don't think people by nature are extremists. You will never find a population of extremists. Extremists have existed throughout the centuries on all religions. And what happens is, extremists start to have more leverage when the situation is bad.
-
You have to respect your parents. They are giving you an at-bat. If you're an entrepreneur and go into the family business, you want to grow fast. Patience is important. But respect the other party... My dad and I pulled it off because we really respect each other.
-
I suffer a little bit from Napoleonism, if you will.
-
Breaking into a system or exposing its weaknesses is a good thing because truth and knowledge must win out.
-
I know better than to read reviews but I do it anyway. Somebody described my pacing as 'glacial.' I wasn't thrilled, but I think they meant it in a not entirely unflattering way.
-
All world conflicts will be resolved if people listen to my advice.
-
All the mystery and wisdom of the Masters, when it’s out in the daylight, doesn’t amount to so much, you know. Tricks of the trade-wonderful illusions. But people don’t want to know that. They want the illusions, the mysteries. Who can blame them? There’s so little in life that’s beautiful or worthy.
-
School systems should base their curriculum not on the idea of separate subjects, but on the much more fertile idea of disciplines... which makes possible a fluid and dynamic curriculum that is interdisciplinary.
-
The Rope a Dope would not have existed without the Big Dope.
-
Since I was 13 or 14 I've always felt older than I actually am.
-
A big part of life is realizing what you're good at.
-
What I have in me... it's not hard, and it's not cold, and it's not fierce ambition, that's not what it is. It's a drive [for success], but it's not a drive...it's being driven, it's something I have no control over. It's something pushing me, I'm not pushing myself.
-
You have to pick the places you don't walk away from.
