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)
https://soundcloud.com/wordsofpower/

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)