Keeping A Journal Quotes

Writing in a journal reminds you of your goals and of your learning in life. It offers a place where you can hold a deliberate, thoughtful conversation with yourself. ~ Robin S. Sharma

Of course we will send postcards to Nutsawoo. And we shall bring him back a present as well. In fact,' she went on, with the instinctive knack every good governess has for turning something enjoyable into a lesson, and vice versa, 'I will expect all three of you to practice your writing by keeping a journal of our trip so that Nutsawoo may know how we spend our days. Why, by the time we return, he will think he has been to London himself! He will be the envy of all his little squirrel friends,' she declared.
Penelope had no way of knowing if this last statement was true. Could squirrels feel envy? Would they give two figs about London? Did Nutsawoo even have friends? ~ Maryrose Wood

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

Keeping a journal of what's going on in your life is a good way to help you distill what's important and what's not. ~ Martina Navratilova

The best time to begin keeping a journal is whenever you decide to. ~ Hannah Hinchman

In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself. ~ Susan Sontag

My advice to would-be young authors is to read a lot, write a lot, and not worry about creating a finished product. Keeping a journal is not a bad idea either. ~ Kevin Henkes

At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man to keep a faithful record of his performances in a book; and he dashes at this work with an enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the pleasantest. But, if he only lives twenty-one days, he will find out that only those rare natures that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for duty's sake, and invincible determination, may hope to venture upon so tremendous an enterprise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a shameful defeat. ~ Mark Twain

There's pressure to come up with something genius every time. I feel like I keep letting myself down with my Twitter posts. I have to start keeping a journal of rough drafts of prophetic ideas about the world. ~ Ari Graynor

Whether you're keeping a journal or writing as a meditation, it's the same thing. What's important is you're having a relationship with your mind. ~ Natalie Goldberg

I suffered from a quite severe speech impediment when I was young, and keeping a journal was part of the therapy. ~ George Fetherling

I once read the sentence 'I lay awake all night with a toothache, thinking about the toothache an about lying awake.' That's true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. ~ C.S. Lewis

I feel happy to be keeping a journal again. I've missed it, missed naming things as they appear, missed the half hour when I push all duties aside and savor the experience of being alive in this beautiful place. ~ May Sarton

The young John Quincy Adams begins it lifelong habit of keeping a journal with reluctance that he might one day have to read it. He hopes, though, that the flaws in his earlier entries will be balanced by the progress he is able to see. ~ Paul C. Nagel

I had to be the world's biggest loser, writing about hair, and stuff about my body. No wonder I stopped keeping a journal. It was like keeping a record of my own stupidity. Why would I want to do that? ~ Benjamin Alire Saenz

I guess whatever maturity is there may be there because I've been keeping a journal forever. In high school my friends would make fun of me - you're doing your man diary again. So I was always trying to translate experience into words. ~ Anthony Doerr

I find the experience of keeping a journal much more creative on paper than on a computer. When I write, I'm physically immersed in the world and slow down, whereas on screen, I use my senses in a less engaged way - and I skim more. ~ Keri Smith

So many places I've never been to ... I have a whole world to experience before it's too late, and I'm keeping a journal of it all as I go, so I'll be able to enjoy the world all over again when I get back. ~ Terry Pratchett

Keeping a [journal] need not be a major chore-just a few minutes of notes each day can be valuable. Writing crystallizes insights, fools the defense of forgetfulness, and builds a collection of ideas and reflections that can spur further insights even years later. ~ Roger N. Walsh

Keeping a journal: The short entries are often as dry as instant tea. Writing them down is like pouring hot water over them to release their aroma. ~ Ernst Junger

Not for a moment did he consider keeping a journal. He would never allow anyone to read his private thoughts; therefore, he did not risk writing them down. "I'd rather take it to my grave," he said. And anyway, when was a journal ever honest? "It either tells a lot of truths to cover a single lie, " he said, "or a lot of lies to cover a single truth. ~ Michael Finkel

I've never been one for keeping a journal, so my songs were my journals. They allowed me to express my feelings and let people know what was going on with me. I knew that somebody would relate. ~ Janet Jackson

Keeping a journal will change your life in ways that you'd never imagine. ~ Oprah Winfrey

Keeping a journal has taught me that there is not so much new in your life as you sometimes think. When you re-read your journal you find out that your latest discovery is something you already found out five years ago. Still, it is true that one penetrates deeper and deeper into the same ideas and the same experiences. ~ Thomas Merton

When Sadik lost his own lease, we moved in together. And after a few months of closer scrutiny, he began to realize that the city had indeed had an effect on me, although not the one he'd expected. I stopped getting high. I ran three miles a day and fasted on Sundays. For the first time in years, I applied myself to my studies and started keeping a journal of daily reflections and very bad poetry. ~ Barack Obama

No wonder I stopped keeping a journal. It was like keeping a record of my own stupidity. ~ Benjamin Alire Saenz

I had started keeping a journal, and I was discovering that I didn't need school in order to experience the misery of appearances. I could manufacture excruciating embarrassment in the privacy of my bedroom, simply by reading what I'd written in the journal the day before. Its pages faithfully mirrored my fraudulence and pomposity and immaturity. Reading it made me desperate to change myself, to sound less idiotic. As George Benson had stressed in Then Joy Breaks Through, the experience of growth and self-realization, even of ecstatic joy, were natural processes available to believers and nonbelievers alike. And so I declared private war on stagnation and committed myself privately to personal growth. The Authentic Relationship I wanted now was with the written page. ~ Jonathan Franzen

I am carrying out my plan, so long formulated, of keeping a journal. What I most keenly wish is not to forget that I am writing for myself alone. Thus I shall always tell the truth, I hope, and thus I shall improve myself. These pages will reproach me for my changes of mind. ~ Eugene Delacroix

Journal Writing

Keeping a journal is an extremely valuable practice. Right now, your mind may be racing with anxious thoughts and worries. Writing them down helps you sort through your problems and come to a deeper understanding of the issues in your life.
The benefits of journal writing may be more than just psychological. Dr. James Pennebaker, a researcher in Texas, discovered that when people write about difficult experiences for twenty minutes at a time over a period of three to four days, their immune system functioning increases. This indicates that the simple act of writing about emotions has a direct impact on your body's ability to withstand stress and fight infection and disease. ~ Heather Moehn

It wasn't really a journal. I tried keeping a journal, but it would always be one long entry filling the first seven pages, and then just nothing. Too hard. ~ Charlotte Leonetti

I ... recommend to every one of my Readers, the keeping a Journal of their Lives for one Week, and setting down punctually their whole Series of Employments during that Space of Time. This kind of Self-Examination would give them a true State of themselves, and incline them to consider seriously what they are about. One Day would rectifie the Omissions of another, and make a Man weigh all those indifferent Actions, which, though they are easily forgotten, must certainly be accounted for. ~ Joseph Addison

I sometimes start keeping a journal about the writing process itself. Particularly when I get the ideas, and I am trying to brood over the chaos phase. In writing a novel, you really have to brood over a lot of chaos of ideas and possibilities. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

Rhage glared over the top of the Caldwell Courier Journal. From his vantage point on V and Butch's leather sofa, he had more view than he wanted of a shirtless Lassiter playing with himself.
Foosball, that was.
The fallen angel was working V's table like a pro, flashing back and forth between the two sides - and hurling insults at himself.
"Question," Rhage muttered, as he rearranged his injured leg. "Are either of your personalities aware that you're schizo-freakin'-phrenic? ~ J.R. Ward

Juet's journal frequently records how only a tiny quantity of alcohol was needed to get the Indians drunk, 'for they could not take it'; and tales of the drunkenness that greeted Hudsons' arrival persisted among the native Indians until the last century. Indeed Heckewelder claims that the name Manhattan is derived from the drunkenness that took place there, since the Indian word 'manahactanienk' means 'the island of general intoxication'. ~ Giles Milton

A post-petroleum world will necessitate walking long distances and exerting much more physical energy to accomplish even routine tasks than we are now accustomed to. Most of our bodies in current time are not up to the task. Yet preparing the body for living in a collapsing world is one of the most fundamental of preparations. Although we may not be able to store vast quantities of food or water, may not have our homes or property equipped as much as we would prefer in preparation for collapse, and may not have learned all the skills we would like to master, becoming present in our bodies and keeping them healthy and fit are factors over which we have control. ~ Carolyn Baker

I am thinking of keeping a diary, not with the intend to publish it, merely to record the facts for the information of God, in case God does not know my version of the facts. ~ Leo Szilard

Through this twilight universe Daisy began to move again with the season; suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men, and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

People say keeping it real is a hard thing to do. Keeping it real is easy. Being fake and being soft is hard to do. ~ Trick Daddy

When Clive stood from the piano and shuffled to the doorway to turn out the studio lights, and looked back at the rich, beautiful chaos that surrounded his toils, and had once more a passing thought, the minuscule fragment of a suspicion that he would not have shared with a single person in the world, would not have even have committed to his journal and whose key word he shaped in his mind only with reluctance ; the thought was, quite simply, that it might be going too far to say that he was ... a genius. A genius. Though he sounded it guiltily on his inner ear, he would not let the word reach his lips. ~ Ian McEwan

Plants Fed On by Fawns"

All the flowers: the pleated leaves of the hellebore;
And the false blossom of the calla, a leaf like a petal -
The white flesh of a woman bathing - a leaf over-
Shadowing the small flowers hidden in the spadix;
And fly poison, tender little flower, whose cursed root
Pounded into a fine white powder will destroy flies.
But why kill flies? They do not trouble me. They
Are like the fruit the birds feed on. They are like
The wind in the trees, or the sap that threads all things,
The blue blood moving through branch and vine,
Through the wings of dead things and living things....
If I lift my hand? If I write to you? The letters
Can be stored in a box. Can they constitute the shape
Of a love? Can the paper be ground? Can the box
Be altar and garden plot and bed? Can there rise
From the bed the form of a two-headed creature,
A figure that looks both forward and back, keeping
Watch always, one head sleeping while the other wakes,
The bird head sleeping while the lion head wakes,
And then the changing of the guard?.... No,
The flies do not trouble me. They are like the stars
At night. Common and beautiful. They are like
My thoughts. I stood at midnight in the orchard.
There were so many stars, and yet the stars,
The very blackness of the night, though perfectly
Cold and clear, seemed to me to be insub ~ Brigit Pegeen Kelly

When he read James Wilkinson's book The Human Body in 1851, Thoreau was impressed. "Wilkinson's book," he wrote in his journal, "to some extent realizes what I have dreamed of, -a return to the primitive analogical and derivative sense of words. His ability to trace analogies often leads to a truer word than more remarkable writers have found ... The faith he puts in old and current expressions as having sprung from an instinct wiser than science, and safely to be trusted if they can be interpreted ... Wilkinson finds a home for the imagination ... All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy; we reason from our hands to our heads. ~ Henry David Thoreau

There's no "magic secret"; writing is like everything else; ten percent inspiration or talent, and ninety percent hard work. Persistence; keeping at it till you get there. As Agnes de Mille said, it means working every day - bored, tired, weary, or with a fever of a hundred and two. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley

We play a sport. It's a game. At the end of the day, that's all it is, is a game. It doesn't make you any better or any worse than anybody else. So by winning a game, you're no better. By losing a game, you're no worse. I think by keeping that mentality, it really keeps things in perspective for me to treat everybody the same. ~ Tim Tebow

Is life worth keeping on with, whatever happens?" Was she talking about living broken, living with loss? Did she count his loss a real one, and did she really want to know or was there a barb in this somewhere? Sometimes, Akiva felt like he didn't know his sister at all. "Yes," he said, wary, thinking of the thurible, and Karou. "As long as you're alive, there's always a chance things will get better."
"Or worse," said Liraz.
"Yes," he conceded. "Usually worse. ~ Laini Taylor

I carry around a notebook that is equal parts day planner and journal. Every morning, I check to see what the agenda for the day is, and if there isn't a plan, I make one. I strive to fill the rest of the page with miscellaneous thoughts and ideas and go back through and fill sparse pages as well. If I start skipping days, I know I'm off course and need to take a step back and ground my life. ~ Kit Williamson

In midmost of the stream, embraced in the weir's shimmering arm-spread, a small island lay anchored, fringed close with willow and silver birch and alder. Reserved, shy, but full of significance, it hid whatever it might hold behind a veil, keeping it till the hour should come, and, with the hour, those who were called and chosen. ~ Kenneth Grahame

Can anything be more absurd than keeping women in a state of ignorance, and yet so vehemently to insist on their resisting temptation? ~ Vicesimus Knox

The last time I was in New York was in a cold January, and everyone was ill and tired. Many of the people I used to know there had moved to Dallas or had gone on Antabuse or had bought a farm in New Hampshire. We stayed ten days, and then we took an afternoon flight back to Los Angeles, and on the way home from the airport that night I could see the moon on the Pacific and smell jasmine all around and we both knew that there was no longer any point in keeping the apartment we still kept in New York. There were years when I called Los Angeles "the Coast," but they seem a long time ago. ~ Joan Didion

Bubble: A safe space where people that don't like to be confronted with the consequences of their actions live. Often known as the perfect environment for those that are too immature to assume responsibility for their lack of realistic perception, and instead focus their energy in maintaining an image of perfection to the outside world, while hiding their real thoughts, quite usually very sadistic and selfish. Bubbles can easily blast when a small portion of truth or justified anger hits one, so people that live inside a bubble are particularly sensitive to those that tell them things they can't comprehend, even, and in particular, when such things are correlated with their immoral social behavior. And as people that live inside a bubble need the bubble as much as they fear the outside world, they often blend unrelated words with their own nonsense to keep the danger of having a bubble exploded far from sight. This includes being an hypocrite when calling one ungrateful, offending someone while calling such individual aggressive, and using negative depreciation with arguments that fit their agenda of keeping themselves within ignorance while bringing others further to that paradox. People that live in the bubble believe anything they hear but always assume that their beliefs are independent, as the bubble stops them from seeing further and admitting something they can't see or accept. Therefore, until the moment in which everyone will be happy to have a microchip attached to ~ Robin Sacredfire

A restlessness has seized hold of many of us, a sense that we should be doing something else, no matter what we are doing, or doing at least two things at once, or going to check some other medium. It's an anxiety about keeping up, about not being left out or getting behind. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Matias frowned. Damn, he'd had a vision of this gorgeous woman naked? He hadn't thought he could despise his memory loss any more than he did, but the hits kept on coming. Wait. The blonde had said vision... as in the future? "We're fated to have sex?"
"No!" Quinn shook her head so quickly and vehemently that her teeth all but rattled.
"You sure? You can't seem to stay away from me." He looked down at their close proximity.
"I knew I should have left you to rot in the psych ward strapped to that bed."
Matias frowned. He was having a hard time keeping up with the conversation. "Kinky. Or is that another dream you had starring yours truly? ~ Jane Cousins

The mind of man is continuously unfolding into a greater recognition of its real plan in the creative order of the Universe. ~ Ernest Holmes

I touched Loki's chest, running my fingers over the bumps of his scar. I didn't know why exactly, but I felt compelled to, as if the scar connected us somehow.
"You just couldn't wait to get me naked, could you, Princess?" Loki asked tiredly. I started to pull my hand back, but he put his own hand over it, keeping it in pace.
"No,I-I was checking for wounds," I stumbled. I wouldn't meet his gaze.
"I'm sure." He moved his thumb, almost caressing my hand, until it hit my ring. "What's that?" He tried to sit up to see it, so I lifted my hand, showing him the emerald-encrusted oval on my finger. "Is that a wedding ring?"
"No, engagement." I lowered my hand, resting it on the bed next to him. "I'm not married yet."
"I'm not too late, then." He smiled and settled back in the bed.
"Too late for what?" I asked.
"To stop you, of course." Still smiling, he closed his eyes.
"Is that why you're here?" I asked, failing to point out how near we were to my nuptials.
"I told you why I'm here," Loki said.
"What happened to you, Loki?" I asked, my voice growing thick when I thought about what he had to have gone through to get all those marks and bruises.
"Are you crying?" Loki asked and opened his eyes.
"No, I'm not crying." I wasn't, but my eyes were moist.
"Don't cry." He tried to sit up, but he winced when he lifted his head, so I put my hand gently on his chest to keep him down.
"You need to rest," I said.
"I will ~ Amanda Hocking

A newcomer to a city should first look for a suitable room for resting at night. After securing the room and keeping the luggage there, he or she may go out for sightseeing. Otherwise it'll be a lot of suffering to find a place to rest in the darkness of the night. Similarly, upon securing the eternal resting place in Self, one can freely roam around doing his or her daily works. ~ Abhijit Naskar

First of all, let me get this straight: This is a JOURNAL, not a diary. I know what it says on the cover, but when Mom went out to buy this thing I SPECIFICALLY told her to get one that didn't say 'diary' on it. ~ Jeff Kinney

aisle on her brother's arm, not her father's." Not to mention that she'd be meeting a groom Meg had little faith in her keeping. But ~ Catherine Bybee

Being a musician, you want to be able to do the hardest stuff there is. People would think it's classical, but in classical, it's all on the page and the difficulty is keeping up with the music. ~ Brian McKnight

for to have a deep attachment for a person (or a place or thing) is to have taken them as the terminating object of our instinctual responses."
Separation anxiety. International Journal of Psycho-Analysts, XLI, 1-25 (1959( ~ John Bowlby

I keep a quotes journal - of every sentence that I've wanted to remember from my reading of the past 30 years. ~ Richard Powers

Needless to say, the business of living interferes with the solitude so needed for any work of the imagination. Here's what Virginia Woolf said in her diary about the sticky issue: I've shirked two parties, and another Frenchman, and buying a hat, and tea with Hilda Trevelyan, for I really can't combine all this with keeping all my imaginary people going. ~ Virginia Woolf

When you take responsibility for your actions, accept that life isn't fair, get rid of excuses, become a doer, and develop an abundance mentality, you will break down many of the barriers keeping you from true success. You will be well on the way to maximizing the potential that God has given you. ~ Tommy Newberry

Limited points of view let the writer dispense - and the reader gather - information from various corners of the story. It all becomes a kind of dance, with the writer guiding the reader through the various twists and turns. The challenge is keeping readers in step, while still managing to surprise. ~ Jonathan Evison

I know we're still getting to know each other. But I also know you're a smart girl. I hate that you learned this lesson at all, much less that you did it at your age. But please, Tab, learn it. You can have family that makes you safe. You can have friends who'll take your back. But the most important person and the one who'll have the best shot at keeping you safe is you. ~ Kristen Ashley

Darkness surrounded her, suffocated her. She tried to pierce it, but her eyes could find no hint of light. Nothing that would help her escape this prison.
Weight pressed down upon her, heavy enough to crush her bones. And perhaps it had. There was no part of her that didn't hurt so much that she wanted to howl with it. But when she opened her mouth, dirt and dust tried to choke her.
Cold.
Pain.
Silence.
No hope.
Then a voice came to her, burrowing down through the soil and coiling around her.
"When love," a woman began to sing softly, "into my dreams was creeping. I gave my heart into your keeping."
Pure ecstasy.
How she needed that voice, that presence to alleviate the darkness and pain and salvage her sanity.
Tears welled in her eyes as she let the soft song embrace her.
Her breath hitched. ~ Dianne Duvall

Brain death didn't allow one time to heal, and the brain was the warehouse for the spirit. Punch a hole in that and you'd shuffle off your mortal coil right away.
Keeping your coil unshuffled was the problem. ~ Kevin Hearne

Remember, you can be exalted without a college degree. You can be exalted without being slender and beautiful. You can be exalted without having a successful career. You can be exalted if you are not rich and famous. So focus the best that you can on those things in life that will lead you back to the presence of God - keeping all things in their proper balance. ~ M. Russell Ballard

All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains? ~ Dave Barry

Being judgmental is a form of attack keeping others off balance. ~ David W. Earle

My thermos does such a good job of keeping my tea hot that it feels like I'm drinking iced tea. ~ Jarod Kintz

She told her journal about me passing by her in the parking lot, about how on that night I had touched her-literally, she felt it, reached out. What I had looked like then. How she dreamed about me. How she had fashioned the idea that a spirit could be a sort of second skin for someone, a protective layer somehow. How maybe if she was assiduous she could free us both. I would read over her shoulder as she wrote down her thoughts and wonder if anyone might believe her one day.
When she was imagining me, she felt better, less alone, more connected to something out there. To someone out there. She saw the corn field in her dreams, and a new world opening, a world where maybe she could find a foothold too.
"You're a really good poet Ruth," she imagined me saying, and her journal would release her into a daydream of being such a good poet that her words had the power to resurrect me. ~ Alice Sebold

When God repeats a promise, you can be absolutely sure it isn't because he has a problem keeping it. ~ Anonymous

Costa Rica, with its tourist-based economy and lack of a national army, has focused on keeping safe its beaches, parks and other public draws. It is one if the safest countries in Central America based on the number of homicides. ~ Laura Chinchilla

He is, however," Amos continued, "keeping a constant rail gun lock on the Israel's reactor."
Holden ran his fingers through his hair. "So not too generous, then."
"Say pretty please, but carry a one-kilo slug of tungsten accelerated to a detectable percentage of c. ~ James S.A. Corey

To date, there is no strong empirical support for claims that automating medical record keeping will lead to major reductions in health-care costs or significant improvements in the well-being of patients. But if doctors and patients have seen few benefits from the scramble to automate record keeping, the companies that supply the systems have profited. Cerner Corporation, a medical software outfit, saw its revenues triple, from $1 billion to $3 billion, between 2005 and 2013. Cerner, as it happens, was one of five corporations that provided RAND with funding for the original 2005 study. The other sponsors, which included General Electric and Hewlett Packard, also have substantial business interests in health-care automation. As today's flawed systems are replaced or upgraded in the future, to fix their interoperability problems and other shortcomings, information technology companies will reap further windfalls. ~ Nicholas Carr