Flavorwire

Happy birthday, Joan Didion! Today marks the 78th birthday of the legendary essayist (and very important writer), and to celebrate, we thought we’d aid everyone in their quest to become a little bit more like her by rounding up a few things she love — or at least the things we know she loves from essays and interviews. And you may be surprised — Didion loves specific books and characters, sure, but also water systems and Alcatraz Island — sensible choices for a woman who is always surprising us. After the jump, a few of Joan Didion’s favorite things. We wish her all these and more on her birthday.

New York

“I was in love with New York. I do not mean ‘love’ in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again. I remember walking across Sixty-second Street one twilight that first spring, or the second spring, they were all alike for a while. I was late to meet someone but I stopped at Lexington Avenue and bought a peach and stood on the corner eating it and knew that I had come out of the West and reached the mirage. I could taste the peach and feel the soft air blowing from a subway grating on my legs and I could smell lilac and garbage and expensive perfume and I knew that it would cost something sooner or later.” — From “Goodbye to All That”