We were that generation called silent, but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period's official optimism nor, as others thought, because we feared its official repression. We were silent because the exhilaration of social action seemed to many of us just one more way of escaping the personal, of masking for a while that dread of the meaningless which was man's fate.


We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction (ed. Everyman's Library, 2006)

Joan Didion Quotes

We were that generation called silent, but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period's official optimism nor, as others...

We were that generation called silent, but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period's official optimism nor, as others...

We were that generation called silent, but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period's official optimism nor, as others...

We were that generation called silent, but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period's official optimism nor, as others...