Diary Quotes

“The only prescription for me is to have a thousand interests.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“First: breakdown, impossible to sleep, impossible to stay awake, impossible to endure life, or, more exactly, the course of life. The clocks are not in unison; the inner one runs crazily on at a devilish or demoniac or in any case inhuman pace, the outer one limps along at its usual speed. What else can happen but that the two worlds split apart, and they do split apart, or at least clash in a fearful manner. There are doubtless several reasons for the wild tempo of the inner process; the most obvious one is introspection, which will suffer no idea to sink tranquilly to rest but must pursue each one into consciousness, only itself to become an idea, in turn to be pursued by renewed introspection.

Secondly: this pursuit, originating in the midst of men, carries one in a direction away from them. The solitude that for the most part has been forced on me, in part voluntarily sought by me –but what was this if not compulsion too? –is now losing all its ambiguity and approaches its dénouement. Where is it leading? The strongest likelihood is, that it may lead to madness; there is nothing more to say, the pursuit goes right through me and rends me asunder. Or I can –can I? –manage to keep my feet somewhat and be carried along in the wild pursuit. Where, then, shall I be brought? ‘Pursuit,’ indeed, is only a metaphor. I can also say, ‘assault on the last earthly frontier’, an assault, moreover, launched from below, from mankind, and since this too is a metaphor, I can replace it by the metaphor of an assault from above, aimed at me from above.”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923

“I am grateful that you, journal, can look at me without closing your covers. Sometimes, that’s all I do: open and close you, open and close, all afternoon on my bed, expecting you to shut on me, but you never do.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, The Goodbye Song

“Today I have two things to confess. It's going to take a long time, but I have to tell them to someone, and you're the most likely candidate, since I know you'll keep a secret, no matter what happens.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“Ovo je moj herbarij. Uberem svježu misao, nalijepim je na stranicu, obilježim datumom i zaklopim bilježnicu. Kad je sljedeći put otvorim, stara misao nije više živa, ali je sačuvana, kao osušena trava od koje sam u ranijim danima kuhala čaj.”
― Marina Vujčić, Stolareva kći

“The secret of keeping a journal is seeing it as a draft, a stepping-stone, a process.”
― Alexandra Johnson, Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal

“To be honest, I wasn’t so sure about it at the beginning. Because it contains special things, but, if I will be a writer, I should publish it, and I have always wanted to write my memoirs.”
― Cihan Serdaroğlu, The Journal of A Man: Real Notes with Real Dates

“The life of society moves in a circle. Only those burdened with a common affliction understand each other. Thanks to their affliction they constitute a circle and provide each other mutual support. They glide along the inner borders of their circle, make way for or jostle one another gently in the crowd. Each encourages the other in the hope that it will react upon himself, or –and then it is done passionately –in the immediate enjoyment of this reaction. Each has only that experience which his affliction grants him; nevertheless one hears such comrades exchanging immensely varying experiences. ‘This is how you are,’ one says to the other; ‘instead of complaining, thank God that this is how you are, for if this were not how you are, you would have this or that misfortune, this or that shame.’ How does this man know that? After all, he belongs –his statement betrays it –to the same circle as does the one to whom he spoke; he stands in the same need of comfort.”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923

“Productivity is now sold as a lifestyle. People hustle away and grind for the sake of grinding. New calendars. New dry erase markers. New journals. But when they write in advanced journals, they write of goals and next steps— never of thoughts and secrets. When they write of goals, their goals are to have more goals. So you abandon the empty castle that is productivity and enter the little cottage of your funny heart.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, The Goodbye Song

“Su un tram affollato a Roma all'ora di chiusura una sera d'inverno, qualcuno per sbaglio mi tocca la spalla. Non mi giro a guardare chi è e non saprò mai se è un uomo o una donna, una sgualdrina o un prete, ma quel tocco delicato scatena in me un tale desiderio di tenerezza e di cura che sospiro; mi sento cedere le ginocchia. Non è un sospiro profumato di violette né uno spasimo chopinesco: è qualcosa di rozzo e reale come i peli sulla mia pancia”
― John Cheever, The Journals of John Cheever

“La cosa più meravigliosa della vita sembra essere che alla fine usiamo solo una parte infinetisimale del nostro potenziale autodistruttivo. Magari lo desideriamo, magari è ciò che sogniamo, ma basta un raggio di luce, un cambio del vento per dissuaderci.”
― John Cheever, The Journals of John Cheever

“It's not the fault of the Dutch that we Jews are having such a bad time.”
― Anne Frank, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

“Book-writing is the province of specialists, living is the business of us all. Moral life, sentimental life, religious life, whatever is above the terre à terre of mere existing, also consists of illuminations which once departed return no more. A diary, a few old letters, a few sheets containing thoughts or meditations, may keep up the connection between us today and our better selves of the past. I was deeply impressed as a youth by the advice of a spiritual writer to read one's own spiritual notes preferably to even famous works. All saints seem to have done so. The moment we realize that any thought, ours or borrowed, is pregnant enough not to be wasted, or original enough not to be likely to come back again, we must fix it on paper. Our manuscripts should mirror our reading, our meditations, our ideals, and our approach to it in our lives. Anybody who has early taken the habit to record himself in that way knows that the loss of his papers would also mean a loss to his thinking possibilities.”
― Ernest Dimnet, The Art of Thinking

“Sometimes we get into the mood for sad songs. The lyrics always hit deeper with this melancholic feeling that you engulf yourself with. Along with coffee this combination is a great way to reflect and savor the moment.”
― Avijeet Das

“So I cried a little, which was natural, I suppose, for one of my age.”
― Mark Twain, The Diaries of Adam and Eve

“He was a dog and even he knew this. By the way and in case anyone was interested, he'd just learned a new word:" diary. "It was a place where one wrote vicious things about one's family and friends and hoped to god they never saw.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“Tuose puslapiuose tvinksi toks gyvas laikmečio pul­sas, kad mūsų širdyse kyla tikrumo alkis, gyvenimo ir tegu netobulo jo realizavimo geismas. Tačiau gyvenimas lieka ta­rytum už stiklo – nutolęs – viskas lyg jau ne mūsų, lyg žvelg­tum pro traukinio langą.”
― Witold Gombrowicz

“From writing in a diary and trying hard to hide it, to writing on public domains, we grew up so fast!”
― Sakshi Mishra

“You and your circumstances are unique. A general solution may not work on your unique personal problems. Your solution will come out from inside you when you express yourself: Write or record a diary or talk to someone who is a compassionate listener.”
― Shunya

“I'll always have,
A part of you..!
That will never let me
Forget you..!”
― Nayan Kasturi

“The difficulties of bringing to an end even a short essay lie not in the fact that we feel the end of the piece demands a fire which the actual content up to that point has not been able to produce out of itself, they arise rather from the fact that even the shortest essay demands of the author a degree of self-satisfaction and of being lost in himself out of which it is difficult to step into the everyday air without great determination and an external incentive, so that, before the essay is rounded to a close and one might quietly slip away, one bolts, driven by unrest, and then the end must be completed from the outside with hands which must not only do the work but hold on as well.”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923

“He said to me, ‘If you are insane, pray for healing. If you are telling the truth, begin a diary. No gods will help you in this.”
― Catherine Butzen, Painter of the Dead

“He said to me, “If you are insane, pray for healing. If you are telling the truth, begin a diary. No gods will help you in this.”
― Catherine Butzen, Painter of the Dead

“If you are insane, pray for healing. If you are telling the truth, begin a diary. No gods will help you in this.”
― Catherine Butzen, Painter of the Dead

“Look at all three levels: relaxing, resting and sleeping, and keep a diary for one week to check on how much time you are allowing for each on a daily basis.”
― Ben Bergeron, Chasing Excellence: A Story About Building the World’s Fittest Athletes

“Zanadto wlazłem w towarzystwo, które tu kwitnie. Ciągle zadaję się z Francuzką i drem franc[uskim] (Żydkiem) z pierwszej oraz
z małpą australską, wobec której wypuszczam zresztą dużo snobizmu naukowego.”
― Bronisław Malinowski, A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term

“So many people and so many diaries. Some are full of trite details of daily routines, while others diligently guard what our past selves thought to be our dearest and most important memories. Some become deeply cherished heirlooms passed down from generation to generation, while others are consumed by the insatiable quicksand of history, the names of those who wrote them vanishing like the final gentle whisper of the early autumn wind. Yet every diary—no matter how boring or gripping it is—tells a story and creates meaning where there was none. If used wisely, that meaning helps us to better understand this ridiculously complicated world through the stories of ourselves and others.”
― Ildar Daminov

“You feel a sudden sadness
that you never felt before
You try to find a reason
behind it but you cannot
You think coffee
might change the feeling
So you drink coffee
and listen to a song
Do you feel
better now?”
― Avijeet Das

“Why would a diary be private unless it had power?”
― Guy Mankowski, "Dead Rock Stars"

“It was unreal because I live only in the depths. When I come to the surface for pleasure, I don’t live. I live only in passion, pain, depths, darkness. But I try to breathe above of the deep ocean of sensation.”
― Anaïs Nin, Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin