A Quote by Joan Didion

I don't really get things very... intuitively. I mean, I don't immediately understand things. The only way I really get it is by writing it down. — © Joan Didion
I don't really get things very... intuitively. I mean, I don't immediately understand things. The only way I really get it is by writing it down.
I suppose . . . in writing you can't have regrets. I mean, you just get it down the way it was . . . it's only wishful thinking that things could be other than they were.
When things go really really bad - life is going to have its way with you no matter who you are - and when things get really really bad, that's the time to stand up and keep going, and to push, not to fall down or run away.
I have very short arms. I can't really reach down and pick things off the floor when they fall. I can't really reach up and get things out of the cupboard.
I think I became a better writer after I started writing for the New Yorker. Well, I know I did. And part of it was having my New Yorker editor and part of it is that was when I started really going on tour and reading things in front of an audience 30 times and then going back in the room and rewriting it and reading it and rewriting it. So you really get the rhythm of the sentences down and you really get the flow down and you get rid of stuff that's not important.
It's technically extremely difficult to get down what you really mean, not what you think you mean, or what you think sounds good, but what's really there, what you really have to express, in words that somehow convey that meaning in an approximate way.
When you actually sit down to write some code, you learn things that you didn't get from thinking about them in modeling terms...there is a feedback process there that you can only really get at from executing some things and seeing what works
I think I'm lucky, in a way, because with the criticism I get online, it's mostly from really young girls that are fans of One Direction, and they're kind of already known for being mean online. So the things that they insult me with are things that don't really bother me.
If you understand something in only one way, then you don't really understand it at all. The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we've connected it to all other things we know. Well-connected representations let you turn ideas around in your mind, to envision things from many perspectives until you find one that works for you. And that's what we mean by thinking!
There are very few good writers about art, and you either get art-fashion writing with trendy views or you get very traditional writing. Occasionally, you get people who can write in an interesting way. Really, I think in a sense art writing needs to be renewed as well. It's in a pretty bad condition.
I can get really obsessive. I like writing many drafts, and I try not to because it is very time-consuming, especially when you're working on a novel. But I do like to take a story and reorder it, put things in different places. This allows me to see things in a new and sometimes surprising way.
It's very, very hard to affect culture. And you can get surprised thinking you're farther down the path of change than you really are because, frankly, most of us like the way things are.
Sit down at ten o'clock in the morning and write anything that comes into my head until twelve. One of the few things I've discovered about writing is to form a habit that becomes an addiction so that if you don't put something down on paper every day, you get really mean and awful with withdrawal symptoms, and your wife and your dog and your kids are going to kick your ass until you get back to it because they can't bear you in that state of mind.
I think the way to be an influential journalist is to be accurate and to be fair and to get things right and to really characterize things in an honest way, versus being really snarky or cheerleading.
Oh my gosh, I'd give so much advice to a younger version of myself. I would say it really does get better as you get older. The things that mean so much, the things that seem like, you know, it's going to cause the end of the world, are all things that I've already forgotten.
Oh my gosh, I’d give so much advice to a younger version of myself. I would say it really does get better as you get older. The things that mean so much, the things that seem like, you know, it’s going to cause the end of the world, are all things that I’ve already forgotten.
When you get down to it, the way that the music affects you individually is the most important thing, and when you let things like the location of a band get in the way or have an effect on your overview, you're cheating yourself out of a really good time.
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