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I like this quote (from Joan Didion): "I don't know what I think until I try to write it down."

• tjradcliffe 12y ago
  There's a similar one from Churchill when asked by a frustrated colleague to get to the point: "How can I know what I think until I hear what I say?" I think a lot of writers are like this: we are painfully aware of our ignorance, our uncertainty, our lack of belief. The struggle to articulate our beliefs is a struggle to form them. Non-writers often seem to "just know" what they think, which is to me quite remarkable. But they also frequently lack the tools to analyze their beliefs and how they are constructed, because they never have to go through the slow and painful process of figuring them out.