QuoteProject
As it happened, I didn't grow up to be the kind of woman who is the heroine in a Western, and although the men I have known have had many virtues and have taken me to live in many places I have come to love, they have never been John Wayne, and they have never taken me to the bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow. Deep in that part of my heart where artificial rain forever falls, that is still the line I want to hear.
Joan Didion
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote reflects on the idea of unattainable ideals in love and relationships.

In this quote, Joan Didion expresses her realization that the romanticized ideals of men and love, often depicted in Westerns, do not match her real-life experiences. Despite appreciating the virtues of the men she has known and the places they've taken her, she yearns for a deeper, more mythical connection that aligns with her dreams and fantasies, symbolized by the image of John Wayne and a specific natural setting that holds personal significance.

Themes

IdealismRelationshipsLongingLoveNostalgia

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a speech about the complexities of love and the contrast between fantasy and reality.

More from Joan Didion

To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed.
Joan DidionRead
The truth is, it's easier for me to write than talk... to express the state I'm in at any time.
Joan DidionRead
Memories are what you no longer want to remember.
Joan DidionRead
It was clear, for example, in 1988 that the political process had already become perilously remote from the electorate it was meant to represent.
Joan DidionRead
I mean maybe I was holding all the aces, but what was the game?
Joan DidionRead
Do not whine... Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone.
Joan DidionRead

Similar quotes

Why do people persist in a dissatisfying relationship, unwilling either to work toward solutions or end it and move on? It's because they know changing will lead to the unknown, and most people believe that the unknown will be much more painful than what they're already experiencing.
Tony RobbinsRead
The next step is to learn to communicate with the people that you feel are causing your pain and misery- not to learn how to prove them wrong and yourself right but how to communicate from the heart.
Pema ChodronRead
Home is where the people who live there need me to come home to them, and worry about me when I'm gone. There's no such place on this earth, no matter how far I drive.
Orson Scott CardRead
It took me as long as I had known him to get rid of all of his words. Like turning an hourglass over.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
It is normal for husband and wife to argue: it's normal. It always happens. But my advice is this: never let the day end without having first made peace. Never!
Pope FrancisRead
If two lives join, there is oft a scar. They are one and one, with a shadowy third; One near one is too far.
Robert BrowningRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.