Words of Power: Joan Didion: “I Know What 'Nothing' Means, and Keep On Playing.”

Friday, November 01, 2013

Joan Didion: “I Know What 'Nothing' Means, and Keep On Playing.”


Joan Didion (Malibu, 1976) Photo Credit: Nancy Ellison.

Profound insights on life and writing from the great Joan Didion:

“I know what 'nothing' means, and keep on playing.”
― Joan Didion, Play It as It Lays

“See enough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going through the motions of doing what I am supposed to do... on that bankrupt morning I will simply open my notebook and there it will all be, a forgotten account with accumulated interest, paid passage back to the world out there...”
― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

"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, Run, River

“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be…”
― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live."
― Joan Didion, "The White Album", in The White Album

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-- Richard Power, Author, Speaker, Yoga Teacher (RYT500)

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See Also

Richard Power's Primal Reality Quadrilogy Available Now from Amazon.com

Great Song: Life and Teachings of Joe Miller - Available Now Via Kindle (Amazon) and Nook (Barnes and Noble)

About Richard Power

Richard Power is a writer, speaker and yoga teacher. He offers workshops, classes and private instruction in yoga and meditation. He is the author of 14 books, most important are Wyrds of Power: New Languagee for A New Reality (2017), I, the Dragon: Chronicles of An Epic Life Among the Humans (2018), and Secret Engine of the World: Further Notes on Primal Reality, Gaian Politics & the Arc of Human Evolution (2021). For more information on all of Power's other books, visit his author's page on Amazon.com.

For much of his life, Power worked in the fields of security and intelligence. He delivered briefings and led training in forty countries, and was an adviser to governments and corporations. His views have been featured in interviews on CNN, PBS, NPR and the BBC, and quoted in mainstream news media, including Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters and Associated Press.

This blog explores new language for the truths of the ancient future, and reflects insights into Vajrayana Buddha Dharma, Kashmir Shiva-Sakti philosophy, Hatha and Tantra Yoga, the Shamanic path, and other aspects of the world's collective mystical heritage. It also offers commentary on art, music, literature, human rights, sustainability, independent journalism, economic justice and the Climate Crisis.