Joan Didion Quotes

“In that part of California, where I grew up it always rained at Christmas, a hard cold rain that darkened the sky at 4 o'clock and threatened the levees and provided a table topic, at my grandmother's house on Christmas afternoon, to which we could all contribute without fear of making our emotions too manifest. It seems to me now that those Christmas afternoons in the rain were somehow "better" than any since, but of course I am lying to myself. Then as now, mothers and daughters misunderstood each other. Father and sons did not speak. I remember my mother telling me, after such an afternoon some years ago, that Christmas used to be "better," that lately we all drank too much and gave one another too many presents.”
― Joan Didion, Joan Didion: What She Means