We love notebooks. Sometimes we even manage to write and journal in these notebooks and not leave them blank for years while buying more notebooks. Since writing, journaling and a love of stationery are so closely related, here are some of our favourite and sometimes famous quotes about notebooks, journaling and writing. Which are your favourites?
Quotes About Notebooks and Journaling
1. “I take notes like some people take drugs. There is an eight-foot stretch of shelves in my house containing nothing but full notebooks. Some would call this hypergraphia (Dostoevsky was a member of this club), but I trust the weakest pen more than the strongest memory, and note taking is—in my experience—one of the most important skills for converting excessive information into precise action and follow-up.” — Tim Ferris (Entrepreneur, investor, author, podcaster)
2. “But that’s not why my notebook comes with me everywhere. I take it with me because it helps me track the uncharted territory of the present moment. I’m forced to slow down and tend to the parts that evoke a whole. Sometimes they plant the seed for an idea that I might write about later on. But mostly, I relish in the quiet engagement of pen on paper, my hand working with my brain to create something concrete and real, something that can’t be deleted in an instant after it is read.” — Martha McPhee (Author)
3. “You can’t trust distant memories, but you can trust your daily diary. It’s the best indicator to your future self (and maybe descendants) of what was really going on in your life at this time.”— Derek Sivers (Musician, Entrepreneur, Book Publisher)
4. “The notebook is the place where you figure out what’s going on inside you or what’s rattling around. And then, the keyboard is the place that you go to tell people about it.”― Austin Kleon (Author)
5. “On many of the jobs I’ve held, even if someone did not know my name or position, I was commonly referred to as “that guy with the notebook”. I was constantly taking notes. It is also a nice “prop” if you want to appear “busy”. A thoughtful look, a slight chin rub, and a few notes. Working hard.” ― Michael A. LaPlante (Writer)
6. “I can divide my life into the disorganized forgetful mess I was before I had my first notebook, and the increasingly organizing and effective person I am still becoming since then.” ― Chris J Wilson (Sketchnoter)
7. “I find a lot of writing happens when you’re not actually at the computer. So I carry a notebook.” ― Noah Baumbach (Filmmaker)
8. “Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.” ― Will Self (Author)
9.“Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter. And lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.” — Jack London (Novelist)
10. “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 Sharma (Author)
11. “Journal writing, when it becomes a ritual for transformation, is not only life-changing but life -expanding.” — Jennifer Williamson (Attorney, Political Strategist)
12. “The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual, daily life but rather — in many cases — offers an alternative to it.” — Susan Sontag, Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963 (Novelist)
13. “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 (Tennis Player, Sportsperson)
14. “Keeping a journal will absolutely change your life in ways you’ve never imagined.” ― Oprah Winfrey (Television Presenter / Producer, Media Proprietor, Author, Philanthropist)
15. “My journal has become a paper mirror, a topographic map to my mind. It is where I go to sort out confusion and decipher the invisible.” ― Dawna Markova (Author)
16. “Sitting for even five minutes with a journal offers a rare cease-fire in the battle of daily life.” ― Alexandra Johnson (Author)
17. “Insights don’t usually arrive at my desk, but go into notebooks when I’m on the move. Or half-asleep.” ― Hilary Mantel (Novelist)
Quotes About Writing
18. “Students who take lecture notes by hand retain and understand the information more deeply than those who take notes on computers because something beautiful and mysterious happens when we relinquish speed to the human pace of thought, physicalized on the page.” ― Martha McPhee (Author)
19. “Immediately after every lecture, meeting, or any significant experience, take 30 seconds — no more, no less — to write down the most important points. If you always do just this, and even if you only do this, with no other revision, you will be okay.” ― Robyn Scott (Entrepreneur, Author)
20. “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.”― E.B. White (Writer)
21. “Find a pen in your hand? Write.
Your notebook is in front of you? Write.
You are sitting at your computer? Write.
Don’t wait for some “best time.” There is no best time to write. People who have writing routines and rituals tire me. If they write, good for them, but don’t make writing something that requires so much forethought and work. You have something to write with, write. That’s all that you really need.” — Randy Murray (Copywriter)
22. “I don’t want the words to be naked the way they are in faxes or in the computer. I want them to be covered by an envelope that you have to rip open in order to get at. I want there to be a waiting time – a pause between the writing and the reading. I want us to be careful about what we say to each other. I want the miles between us to be real and long. This will be our law – that we write our dailiness and our suffering very, very carefully.”― Siri Hustvedt (Author)
23. “You are not the person you were yesterday. Tomorrow that difference and growth will continue. That’s why you must write. From mind to paper there has to be an articulation beyond the electrical impulses which continuously flit the brain. With pen and paper, you have a chance to bring order to that development, that creativity, that intelligence that comes with a human being. To neglect that ordering process is to give reign to worry, anxiety, stress; each and every one an electrical impulse which is out of control.”― Nicholas Bate (Author, Designer)
24. “Should I lose all my important writing, I’d prefer being able to say it died in the flames of an unquenchable fire, or the merciless gusts of a tornado, or rapids of river water beating down the front door during a flash flood. If the writing matters at all to me, it deserves something a little better than, “I forgot to press Ctrl-S.”― J. D. Bentley (Writer)
25. “An idea is an odd thing. It is neurons in your brain connecting, but it means nothing until you can communicate it. You might forget it, and then it’s lost. Therefore really the spark of creativity is when you can tell someone about it with a drawing or illustration or sketch, a mark on paper.” ― Alex Hammond (Author)
26. “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” ― Anaïs Nin (Author)
27. “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” ― Benjamin Franklin (Author, Inventor, Scientist
28. “A word after a word after a word is power.” ― Margaret Atwood (Author)
29. “I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” ― Anne Frank (Diarist)
30. “You can make anything by writing.” ― C.S. Lewis (Novelist, Scholar, Broadcaster)
31. “Anyone and everyone taking a writing class knows that the secret of good writing is to cut it back, pare it down, winnow, chop, hack, prune, and trim, remove every superfluous word, compress, compress, compress…” ― Nick Hornby (Writer, Lyricist)
32. “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” — Flannery O’Connor (Novelist)
33. “Writing is medicine. It is an appropriate antidote to injury. It is an appropriate companion for any difficult change.” — Julia Cameron (Teacher, Author, Playwright, Journalist)
34. “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 (Professor of Psychiatry, Philosophy and Anthropology)
35. “For me, writing is a way of thinking. I write in a journal a lot. I’m a very impatient person, so writing and meditation allow me to slow down and watch my mind; they are containers that keep me in place, hold me still.” ― Ruth Ozeki (Novelist, Filmmaker)
36. “Writing your name can lead to writing sentences. And the next thing you’ll be doing is writing paragraphs, and then books.” ― Henry David Thoreau (Poet, Philosopher, Essayist)
37. “We should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act of living. Writing is sensual, experiential, grounding. We should write because writing is good for the soul.” ― Julia Cameron (Author)
38. “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”
― Stephen King (Author)
39. “I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I’m afraid of.” ― Joss Whedon (Director / Producer, Screenwriter, Film Editor)
40. “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” ― Joan Didion (Writer, Journalist)
41.”If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”― Margaret Atwood (Writer)
42. “My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.”
― Ernest Hemingway (Novelist)
43. “You may not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” ― Jodi Picoult (Writer)
44. “Writing is an act of faith, not a grammar trick.” ― E.B. White (Writer)
45. “In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.” ― Junot Diaz (Writer)
46. “Successful writing is one part inspiration and two parts sheer stubbornness.” ― Gillian Flynn (Author, Screenwriter, Producer)
47. “The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.” ― Gustave Flaubert (Novelist)
48. “If you do not hear music in your words, you have put too much thought into your writing and not enough heart.” ― Terry Brooks (Author)
49. “The secret of it all is to write… without waiting for a fit time or place.” ― Walt Whitman (Poet)
50. “Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly.”― Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (Roman Rhetorician)
51. “And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.” — Ray Bradbury (Writer)
Check our favourite pen and pencil quotes at the links below,
27 Best Pen Quotes For Stationery Lovers
https://inkymemo.com/best-pen-quotes/
