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The apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe the illusion will live here in only the most temporary way.

Joan Didion

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Joan Didion
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: December 5
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Sacramento
California
Ease
Illusion
Live
Believe
Way
Life
Apparent
Temporary
California

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Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. 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.
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I know something about dread myself, and appreciate the elaborate systems with which some people fill the void, appreciate all the opiates of the people, whether they are as accessible as alcohol and heroin and promiscuity or as hard to come by as faith in God or History.
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To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.
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I have always wanted a swimming pool and never had one.
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I wanted to be an oceanographer, actually. It's a way of going underwater. I've always been interested in how deep it was, you know.
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I'm totally in control of this tiny, tiny world right there at the typewriter.
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I myself have always found that if I examine something, it's less scary. I grew up in the West, and we always had this theory that if you saw - if you kept the snake in your eye line, the snake wasn't going to bite you. And that's kind of the way I feel about confronting pain. I want to know where it is.
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I could talk more directly in a nonfiction voice than I could in fiction.
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New York is full of people . . . with a feeling for the tangential adventure, the risky adventure, the interlude that's not likely to end in any double-ring ceremony.
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I don't think anybody feels like they're a good parent. Or if people think they're good parents, they ought to think again.
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