"I've come to a much more controlled idea about death and loss, but I don't think it's possible to come to that much more controlled idea until you've gone through the crazy part . . . I don't mean that I'm controlled. I mean that I gave up the idea that I had control. That's the new control."

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Source: Joan Didion, The Art of Nonfiction No. 1. Interview with Hilton Als, www.theparisreview.org. 2006.

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Joan Didion

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Joan Didion was an influential American writer known for her incisive essays and novels that explore themes of memory, identity, and societal change.

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