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"The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. I suppose that it begins or does not begin in the cradle."
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"A writer writesregardless...even though...notwithstanding...despite...at any rate...anyhow...nevertheless...in the face of...undeterred by...heedless of...and because.The true writer simply continues to write."
"What I've learned about writing is that sometimes less is more, while often more is grander. And both are true."
"If you want to be a good writer, internalize the good writers; absorb them; integrate with their souls; embrace their minds; mingle with their life stories; in short, merge with them, lose yourself in them!"
"As a writer, you must truly possess a love for words.""Yes, that's right," I agreed."I've noticed that some authors favor particular words, making frequent use of them. Do you have a favorite?"I nodded assuredly and shared my answer. "BECAUSE."My interviewer looked surprised, as though he'd expected an impressive adjective or some rare verb. "That's your favorite word? Why?"I tried not to smirk. "Because."
"There are days when writing is within my power and a story unfolds along a course I've already chosen. And then there are days when the words breathe on their own and take me by the hand, leading me along unfathomed paths. Either way, the end result is this author's fairytale."
"The pleasures of being a novelist are many. But the greatest by far is the manner in which I live through my characters; experiencing every detail of their story as it unfolds gradually and personally within my own creative psyche. I'm like a cat with untold lives, because each new book is my rebirth."
"Some writers write to forget. Some forget to write."
"It's a phenomenal experience jumping from the devious mind of a sorceress bent on conquering the world to the compassionate musing of a queen capable of healing life with a touch-all in a flicker of thought. That's why I love writing."
"By small and simple sentences, great books come to pass."
"The habit of writing for my eye is good practice. It loosens the ligaments."
Explore more quotes by Joan Didion
"Carter and Helene still ask questions. I used to ask questions, and I got the answer: nothing. The answer is 'nothing."
"And except on a certain kind of winter evening-six-thirty in the Seventies, say, already dark and bitter with a wind off the river, when I would be walking very fast toward a bus and would look in the bright windows of brownstones and see cooks working in clean kitchens and and imagine women lighting candles on the floor above and beautiful children being bathed on the floor above that-except on nights like those, I never felt poor; I had the feeling that if I needed money I could always get it."
"Alcohol has its own well-know defects as a medication for depression but no one has ever suggested - ask any doctor - that it is not the most effective anti-anxiety agent yet known."
"Someone who lives always with a plane schedule in the drawer lives on a slightly different calendar."
"Was there ever in anyone's life span a point free in time, devoid of memory, a night when choice was any more than the sum of all the choices gone before?"
"As a writer, even as a child, long before what I wrote began to be published, I developed a sense that meaning itself was resident in the rhythms of words and sentences and paragraphs...The way I write is who I am, or have become..."
"Webley Edwards was on the radio, they remember that, and what he said that morning again and again was 'This is an air raid, take cover, this is the real McCoy. That is not a remarkable thing to say, but it is a remarkable thing to have in one's memory."
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