Joan Didion said this quote

“ I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us. I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead. Let them become the photograph on the table. Let them become the name on the trust accounts. Let go of them in the water. Knowing this does not make it any easier to let go of him in the water. ”

Famous Quotes of Joan Didion

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Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.

~ Joan Didion

Joan Didion Character Life Responsibility Self Respect

I tell you this true story just to prove that I can. That my frailty has not yet reached a point at which I can no longer tell a true story.

~ Joan Didion

Joan Didion Ability Inspirational Talent Truth Writing

The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. I suppose that it begins or does not begin in the cradle.

~ Joan Didion

Joan Didion Compulsion Writing

We imagined we knew everything the other thought, even when we did not necessarily want to know it, but in fact, I have come to see, we knew not the smallest fraction of what there was to know.

~ Joan Didion

Joan Didion Relationships