Diaries Quotes - Page 3

• Why has my motley diary no jokes? Because it is a soliloquy and every man is grave alone.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Graves, Journal

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt McLaughlin (2010). “The Laws of Nature: Excerpts from the Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.9, North Atlantic Books

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• To keep a diary is to attempt a difficult literary form. Its effectiveness is likely to derive from a special blend of honesty and appetite for life that gives the power to record everyday happenings while magically freeing them from banality and triviality.

  William Plomer

  Honesty, Appetite For Life, Effectiveness

  Robert Francis Kilvert, William Plomer (1969). “Kilvert's diary: selections from the diary of the Rev. Francis Kilvert, 1 January 1870-[13 March 1879]”, Jonathan Cape

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• The literature of the inner life is very largely a record of struggle with the inordinate passions of the social self.

  Charles Horton Cooley

  Struggle, Passion, Self

  Charles Horton Cooley (1964). “Human Nature and the Social Order”, p.248, Transaction Publishers

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• (from John Hay's diary) “The President never appeared to better advantage in the world,” Hay proudly noted in his diary. “Though He knows how immense is the danger to himself from the unreasoning anger of that committee, he never cringed to them for an instant. He stood where he thought he was right and crushed them with his candid logic.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  President, Hay, World

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• My songs are basically my diaries. Some of my best songwriting has come out of time when I've been going through a personal nightmare.

  Gwen Stefani

  Music, Song, Nightmare

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• A man's diary is a record in youth of his sentiments, in middle age of his actions, in old age of his reflections.

  John Quincy Adams

  Reflection, Men, Age

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• A diary is the last place to go if you wish to seek the truth about a person. Nobody dares to make the final confession to themselves on paper: or at least, not about love.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Wish, Finals, Paper

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.194, Faber & Faber

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• The point of the daily diary exercise is not to record what you already know about what happened to you in the last 24 hours. Instead, it’s an invitation to the back of your mind to come forward and reveal to you the perishable images about the day you didn’t notice you noticed at all.

  Lynda Barry

  Exercise, Mind, Records

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• There are many reasons for keeping a diary: to make a note of facts that one considers important; to open one's heart, to give vent to one's feelings, to make confessions; from the instinct of economy which sometimes encourages a writer to make good use of even the smallest crumbs of his life, so that he may have one more book to publish; or again from vanity and self- satisfaction.

  Alberto Moravia

  Book, Heart, Vanity

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• Each new day is a blank page in the diary of your life.

  Douglas Pagels

  New Year, New Day, Pages

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• There is not a single line in this diary that does not call for a correction or a denial...Yes: throughout these pages I meant what I was writing and I meant the opposite; reading them again I feel completely lost...I was lying to myself. How I lied to myself!

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Lying, Reading, Writing

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• Yes, there is no doubt that paper is patient and as I don't intend to show this cardboard-covered notebook, bearing the proud name of "diary," to anyone, unless I find a real friend, boy or girl, probably nobody cares. And now I come to the root of the matter, the reason for my starting a diary: it is that I have no such real friend.

  Anne Frank

  Notebook, Girl, Real

  Anne Frank, General Press (2016). “The Diary of a Young Girl”, p.13, GENERAL PRESS

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• Keeping a diary is advanced-level living. I spend way too much time trying not to curl up in the corner like a giant fetus & weep to keep a diary.

  Alissa Nutting

  Trying, Curls, Giants

  "A teachable moment". Interview with John Lee, logger.believermag.com. August 6, 2013.

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• I have decided to keep a full journal, in the hope that my life will perhaps seem more interesting when it is written down.

  Sue Townsend

  Interesting, Adolescence, Journal

  Sue Townsend (1994). “Adrian Mole, the lost years”, Soho Pr Inc

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• Writing is communication, not self-expression. Nobody in this world wants to read your diary except your mother.

  Richard Peck

  Mother, Communication, Writing

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• When I'm travelling, I always take my little notebook and scribble things down as I watch them; I'm very much geared to everything that's happening. Whereas, the diary I keep is just about a record of a day I've spent. When I'm filming, I'm looking quite intensely at everything I see and trying to get my own eye on what we're going through.

  Michael Palin

  Notebook, Eye, Trying

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• When you're travelling, your day is jam-packed. I just don't have time to whip out a PC all the time. But I can whip out a BlackBerry and tweet. I keep a constant diary of where I'm at and why I'm there.

  Kevin O'Leary

  Jam, Tweet, Constant

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• These are the experiences I wish to record in this book, which should really be called The Diary of a Palaeontologist. But in committing them to paper I found it advisable to alter and add a good deal, to enable the reader without specialized training to follow me along the winding paths of palaeontology and prehistory.

  Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald

  Book, Training, Wish

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• Fights don't solve matters, they just make things worse. (Diary 19)

  Erin Gruwell

  Fighting, Matter, Solve

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• I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I'm an idiot.

  Steven Wright

  Birthday, Moving, Tired

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• What was happening was only the working-out of a process that had started years ago. The first step had been a secret, involuntary thought, the second had been the opening of the diary. He had moved from thoughts to words, and now from words to actions. The last step was something that would happen in the Ministry of Love. He had accepted it. The end was contained in the beginning.

  George Orwell

  Years, Work Out, Secret

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.253, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• My diary became more than a place to record daily events. It became a friend, the paper that it was made of was ready and willing to accept anything and everything I had to say.

  Zlata Filipović

  Anything And Everything, Events, Records

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• My lyrics are my diary - you're hearing every detail of my life.

  Taylor Momsen

  Details, Hearing

  "Iron Maiden". Interview With Lauren Waterman, www.teenvogue.com. July 27, 2009.

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• She read it again. It was fascinating and surreal, like reading a diary that had been hers when she was a teenager, secret and heartfelt words written by a girl she only vaguely remembered. She wished she'd written more. Her words mad her feel sad and proud, powerful and relieved." p 272

  Lisa Genova

  Girl, Powerful, Teenager

  Lisa Genova (2011). “Lisa Genova Box Set: Still Alice and Left Neglected”, p.319, Simon and Schuster

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• My friend is not allowed to go out today. I sit by his side and read him passages from his own life. They fill him with surprise. Everyone should keep someone else's diary; I sometimes suspect you of keeping mine.

  Oscar Wilde

  Today, Sides, Sometimes

  Oscar Wilde (1962). “Letters”

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