Joan Didion understands the role of curiosity and inquiry in the life of a writer and how it leads to understanding and discovery—even discovering oneself.
“I write entirely to find out what is on my mind, what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I’m seeing, and what it means.” — Joan Didion
Source: Trimble, John R. Writing with Style: Conversations on the Art of Writing, Second Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2000. 169. Print.
[Trimble includes a section at the back of the book called “Writers Talking Shop.” His source for the Didion quote follows: Joan Didion, “Why I Write,” a Regents’ Lecture at the U. of California at Berkeley, reprinted in The Writer on Her Work, ed. Janet Sternburg (New York: Norton, 1980), p. 20.]
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