Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactlywhat was it I wanted to remember? How much of it actually happened?Did any of it? Why do I keep a notebook at all? It is easy to deceive oneselfon all those scores.

Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember? How much of it actually happened? Did any of it? Why do I keep a notebook at all? It is easy to deceive oneself on all those scores.

Joan Didion • On Keeping a Notebook - Joan Didion

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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

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

Joan Didion • On Keeping a Notebook - Joan Didion

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

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

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.