The fancy that extraterrestrial life is by definition of a higher order than our own is one that soothes all children, and many writers. – Joan Didion
To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves – there lies the great, singular power of self-respect. – Joan Didion
Writing fiction is for me a fraught business, an occasion of daily dread for at least the first half of the novel, and sometimes all the way through. The work process is totally different from writing nonfiction. You have to sit down every day and make it up. – Joan Didion
Before Id written movies, I never could do big set-piece scenes with a lot of different speakers – when youve got twelve people around a dinner table talking at cross purposes. I had always been impressed by other peoples ability to do that. – Joan Didion