Ann He

“I’m saying you can’t let yourself not be. You can’t let yourself make mistakes, be human. Having to be right is like the Midas touch. You think it would be wonderful if everything you touched turned to gold, then you find you’ve turned to gold yourself, stopped being human.”
― Joan Didion, Notes to John

“I can see that as thrilling,” he said. “Liberating. I could make a case that you walked in here and sat down and for the first time felt liberated enough to cry, tears of joy. You’d found something you thought could truly engage you, enable you to set your concerns to one side. Which is what you’ve needed to do all year. It was the clearest thing about you. You needed to work, and work in a meaningful way. It’s not selfish. It’s crucial to your own survival.”
― Joan Didion, Notes to John

“I see your point. You could be making the child dependent on the positive feedback he or she might not get. Whereas the feedback for ‘doing the right thing’ comes from within, the child can award it to him or herself.”
― Joan Didion, Notes to John

“There was a fear that the energy she needed to undertake this life would go into the attachment, that the attachment had in the first case and could in this case serve as a kind of way out.”
― Joan Didion, Notes to John