So the point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now,to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking.That would be a different impulse entirely, an instinct for reality which Isometimes envy but do not possess.

So the point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking. That would be a different impulse entirely, an instinct for reality which I sometimes envy but do not possess.

Joan Didion • On Keeping a Notebook - Joan Didion

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Joan Didion on Keeping a Notebook

Maria Popova themarginalian.org

Since the note is in my notebook, it presumably has some meaning to me.

Joan Didion • On Keeping a Notebook - Joan Didion

The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly com pulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only acciden tally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself.

Joan Didion • On Keeping a Notebook - Joan Didion

It is in the present moment that we begin to know ourselves. Joan Didion, a famous proponent of writing things down, began doing so at age five. She believed that notebooks were one of the best antidotes for a distracted world: “We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget w

Ryder Carroll • The Bullet Journal Method

And so we do. But our notebooks give us away, for however dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implacable “I.” We are not talk ing here about the kind of notebook that is patently for public consump tion, a structural conceit for binding together a series of grace... See more

Joan Didion • On Keeping a Notebook - Joan Didion

On Keeping a Notebook - Joan Didion

Joan Didion reflects on the personal and introspective nature of keeping a notebook, delving into memory, self-reflection, and the significance of past experiences.

pdf-objects.com

Taking notes, I’ve come to realize, is a form of collecting. I’ve never been interested in collecting physical things, but when it comes to beautiful literary quotes, I have thousands of notebook entries.

Jillian Hess • Alfred Kinsey's Notes on Americans' Sex-Lives

How it felt to me : that is getting closer to the truth about a note book. I sometimes delude myself about why I keep a notebook, imagine that some thrifty virtue derives from preserving everything observed. See enough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going throu... See more