In Just As I Thought, Paley recounts her years in the peace movement, the women's movement, and also as a writer. "The Illegal Days" is an excellent piece on abortion. But my favourite piece in the book was "Imagining the Present", in which she writes about imagination in the same way that so many writers look upon the novel as a means to empathy. Paley sees imagination as a tremendously potent force. She writes:
First of all, we need our imaginations to understand what is happening to other people around us, to try to understand the lives of others. I know there's a certain political view that you mustn't write about anyone except yourself, your own exact people. Of course it's very hard for anyone to know who their exact people are, anyway. But that's limiting. The idea of writing from the head or from the view or the experience of other people, of another life, or even of just the people across the street or next door, is probably one of the most important acts of the imagination that you can try and that can be useful to the world.
I am so glad I read this book.