25 Year of Magical Thinking Quotes From the Award-Winning Novel
Published July 16, 2023
If you have ever had to deal with the loss of a loved one, then you will be able to relate to these Year of Magical Thinking quotes.
The Year of Magical Thinking is a book by Joan Didion that was released in 2005 and tells the story of Joan’s year following the death of her husband, John.
The book was published by Alfred A. Knopf and won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2005.
The Year of Magical Thinking details the pain and despair that Joan went through and even talks about other events that she was dealing with, like her daughter being hospitalized days before the death of John and again during the first year of his death.
Read these Year of Magical Thinking quotes for a few moments to learn more about this powerful book.
Sad Year of Magical Thinking Quotes
Here are some sad Year of Magical Thinking quotes.
1. “I love you more than even one more day.” — Joan Didion
2. “Grief is different. Grief has no distance.” — Joan Didion
3. “Mourning has its place but also its limits.” — Joan Didion
4. “Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.” — Joan Didion
5. “How could this have happened when everything was normal?” — Joan Didion
6. “Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it.” — Joan Didion
7. “A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.” — Joan Didion
8. “I wanted to get the tears out of the way so I could act sensibly.” — Joan Didion
9. “I needed to discuss this with John. There was nothing I did not discuss with John.” — Joan Didion
10. “Why do you always have to have the last word? For once in your life, just let it go.” — Joan Didion
Relatable Year of Magical Thinking Quotes
Many people who have experienced mourning will be able to relate to these Year of Magical Thinking quotes.
11. “This is a case in which I need more than words to find the meaning.” — Joan Didion
12. “I cannot count the days on which I found myself driving abruptly blinded by tears.” — Joan Didion
13. “I did not always think he was right nor did he always think I was right, but we were each the person the other trusted.” — Joan Didion
14. “Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.” — Joan Didion
15. “The mourner is, in fact, ill, but because this state of mind is common and seems so natural to us, we do not call mourning an illness….” — Joan Didion
16. “People who have recently lost someone have a certain look, recognizable maybe only to those who have seen that look on their own faces.” — Joan Didion
17. “I could not count the times during the average day when something would come up that I needed to tell him. This impulse did not end with his death.” — Joan Didion
More Year of Magical Thinking Quotes
Check out these Year of Magical Thinking quotes.
18. “Grief, when it comes, is nothing we expect it to be.” — Joan Didion
19. “Mourning, the act of dealing with grief, required attention.” — Joan Didion
20. “Why did I keep stressing what was and was not normal, when nothing about it was?” — Joan Didion
21. “We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind.” — Joan Didion
22. “I realized that for the time being, I could not trust myself to present a coherent face to the world.” — Joan Didion
23. “I did not want to finish the year because I know that as the days pass, as January becomes February and February becomes summer, certain things will happen.” — Joan Didion
24. “The second kind of grief was “complicated grief,” which was also known in the literature as “pathological bereavement” and was said to occur in a variety of situations.” — Joan Didion
25. “The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place.” — Joan Didion
What Makes This Book So Powerful?
Joan had to figure out not only how to cope with her loss, but like so many others, she had to deal with life continuing and needing to be there for her daughter and others.
She also writes about how she magically hoped that John would reappear or that she could change the past and that these experiences of derangement are part of the grieving process.
Share these Year of Magical Thinking quotes with your family and friends, and share your thoughts about the book in the comment section below.
