"Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means… What is going on in these pictures in my mind?"
— Joan Didion, in her 1976 New York Times article, “Why I Write,” (full PDF), which begins: “Of course I stole the title from this talk, from George Orwell. One reason I stole it was that I like the sound of the words: Why I Write… I stole the title not only because the words sounded right but because they seemed to sum up, in a no-nonsense way, all I have to tell you.” (thx, @ambercadabra)
(Source: austinkleon)
