On Keeping a Journal.

Superficial to understand the journal as just a receptacle for one’s private, secret thoughts — like a confidante who is deaf, dumb, and illiterate. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could do to any person; I create myself.

The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual, daily life but rather — in many cases — offers an alternative to it.

To have some account of my thoughts, manners, acquaintance and actions, when the hour arrives in which time is more nimble than memory, is the reason which induces me to keep a journal: a journal in which I must confess my every thought, must open my whole heart!

A man´s study reflects himself as he wishes to be seen publicly, but his journal, if he is honest, reflects something else.

A journal, a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy.

Keeping a journal implies hope.

A journal is a record of experiences and growth, not a preserve of things well done and said.

He started keeping a journal — had been, in fact, secretly doing so for some time: the furtive act of a deranged person.

This is what the best journals look like. They aren’t for the reader. They are for the writer. To slow the mind down. To wage peace with oneself.

My Journal should be the record of my love. I would write in it only of the things I love, my affection for any aspect of the world, what I love to think of.

We live in such isolation, and here I am again with my silent friend, my diary.