"The secret point of money and power in America is neither the things that money can buy nor power for power's sake... but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy. It is the instinct which drove America to the Pacific, all through the nineteenth century, the desire to be able to find a restaurant open in case you want a sandwich, to be a free agent, live by one's own rules."

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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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