When I went to San Francisco in that cold late spring of 1967, I did not even know what I wanted to find out, and so I just stayed around a while and made a few friends.
From Joan Didion
New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself.
We all survive more than we think we can.
We imagine things - that we wouldn't be able to survive, but in fact, we do survive. We have no choice, so we do it.
My mother 'gave teas' the way other mothers breathed. Her own mother 'gave teas.' All of their friends 'gave teas,' each involving butter cookies extruded from a metal press and pastel bonbons ordered from See's.
We tell ourselves stories in order to live.
You can throw a novel into focus with one overheard line.
I never think people are too careful with me.
It was clear, for example, in 1988 that the political process had already become perilously remote from the electorate it was meant to represent.
In many ways, writing is the act of saying 'I,' of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying, 'Listen to me, see it my way, change your mind.' It's an aggressive, even a hostile act.
5 perspectives
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