.png)
Writing in a journal is a powerful tool for self-reflection and personal growth.
This post includes 72 of our favorite quotes about journaling. You'll find quotes to inspire, guide, and encourage you wherever you are in your journaling practice.
72 Inspiring Quotes About Journaling
1. "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
2. "Journaling organizes your thoughts; allows you to see things in a concrete way that otherwise you might not see." Kay Walkingstick
3. "Your journal is like your best friend. You don't have to pretend with it, you can be honest and write exactly how you feel." Bukola Ogunwale
4. "All the noise in my brain. I clamp it to the page so it will be still." Barbara Kingsolver
5. “When I look back on my personal story through my journals, it struck me my words had an unmatched power to heal me. To change me.” Sandra Marinella
6. “A journal can offer you a place to be someone, anyone, who you want to be.” Brian Ledger
7. "Writing in a journal gives me a place to report, interpret, argue, reflect, save, question, predict, unload, praise, compare, cry, laugh, draw, paint, and remember." Luci Swindoll
8. "Journaling gives you such an appreciation for the good things in your life while also helping you improve on the not-so-good things in your life." Steve Cicco
9. "Start writing no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on." Louis L'Amour
"10. The best time to begin keeping a journal is whenever you decide to." Hannah Hinchman
"11. The starting point of discovering who you are, your gifts, your talents, your dreams, is being comfortable with yourself. Spend time alone. Write in a journal." Robin Sharma
"12. People who keep journals have life twice." Jessamyn West
13. "Our pasts define us, yet memory is untrustworthy. By keeping a journal, I can capture those memories when they're still reasonably fresh. Journaling helps me keep a narrative of my life. It keeps me honest with myself." John Dumas
14. "Writing is medicine. It is an appropriate antidote to injury. It is an appropriate companion for any difficult change." Julia Cameron
15. "Journal writing, when it becomes a ritual for transformation, is not only life-changing but life-expanding." Jennifer Williamson
16. "I like to record what's happened, how my life and relationships have developed, and to know even about the mundane stuff in life that happens, but we might otherwise forget – a trip for coffee with a friend, or some good or bad luck, or a trip to the theatre." Andy Oldham
17. "Sitting for even five minutes with a journal offers a rare cease-fire in the battle of daily life." Alexandra Johnson
18. "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
19. "Journal writing is a voyage to the interior." Christina Baldwin
20. "Journaling leads people to life changes, leaps of faith, new insights, and meaningful decisions." Lynda Monk
21. "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
22. "I don't journal to 'be productive.' I don't do it to find great ideas or to put down prose I can later publish. The pages aren't intended for anyone but me. It's the most cost-effective therapy I've ever found." Tim Ferriss
23. "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection." Anaïs Nin
24. "In the journal, I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself." Susan Sontag
25. "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
26. “Writing is another powerful way to sharpen the mental saw. Keeping a journal of our thoughts, experiences, insights, and learnings promotes mental clarity, exactness, and context.” Stephen Covey
27. " I never wrote things down to remember; I always wrote things down so I could forget." Matthew McConaughey
28. "Writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things –childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves – that go on slipping, like sand, through our fingers." Salmon Rushdie
29. "Documenting little details of your everyday life becomes a celebration of who you are." Carolyn V. Hamilton
30. "A journal is your completely unaltered voice." Lucy Dacus
31. “Writing in a journal each day allows you to direct your focus to what you accomplished, what you’re grateful for and what you’re committed to doing better tomorrow. Thus, you more deeply enjoy your journey each day.” Hal Elrod
32. "Journaling is like whispering to one's self and listening at the same time." Mina Murray (Bram Stoker's Dracula)
33. "Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open." Natalie Goldberg
34. “When I go back and read my journals or fiction, I am always surprised. I may not remember having those thoughts, but they still exist and I know they are mine, and it’s all part of making sense of who I am.” Amy Tan
35. "The very act of writing it down made her realize how easy it would be to forget, how important it would be from now on to put everything, everything, down on paper." Donna Tartt
36. "I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say." Flannery O'Connor
37. "Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart." William Wordsworth
38. “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
39. "Journaling helps you to remember how strong you truly are within yourself." Asad Meah
40. "Tears are words that need to be written." Paul Coelho
41. "A personal journal is an ideal environment in which to “become”. It is a perfect place for you to think, feel, discover, expand, remember, and dream.” Brad Wilcox
42. "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
43. "Your journal will stand as a chronicle of your growth, your hopes, your fears, your dreams, your ambitions, your sorrows, your serendipities." Kathleen Adams
44. “Paper is to write things down that we need to remember. Our brains are used to think.” Albert Einstein
45. “Journal writing gives us insights into who we are, who we were, and who we can become.” Sandra Marinella
46. "Writing in a daily journal is important but the reason why I journal is because I can read my own writing after many months have passed by. I'm able to reflect on my life, my actions, my behaviors, my memories, and also the behavior of others around me." Nando Prudhomme
47. "Journaling is a way to get to know yourself better, to process your emotions and to work through difficult experiences." Elizabeth Scott
48. "I hope that someday when I am gone, someone, somewhere, picks my soul up off of these pages and thinks, ‘I would have loved her.’” Nicole Lyons
49. “Journaling is paying attention to the inside for the purpose of living well from the inside out.” Lee Wise
50. "I love my journal as much as I love my phone. I find it to be a big part of my self-care to reflect on my day and write words that inspire me." Franchesca Ramsey
51. "I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn." Anne Frank
52. "This is what the best journals look like. They aren’t for the reader. They are for the writer. To slow the mind down. To wage peace with oneself.” Ryan Holiday
53. “Let’s end the notion that ideas have no value unless they turn into a business or have some other practical use. Save them all in a beautiful book like Leonardo did. You might want to give them away someday, perhaps to someone who needs an idea. Or your great-great-grandchildren might love knowing what a fascinating mind you had. Or your biographer might be very happy after you’re gone.” Barbara Sher
54. "Write hard and clear about what hurts." Ernest Hemingway
55. "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
56. "Journaling increases your self-confidence. It helps you look at how far you’ve come and how you overcame previous seemingly ‘impossible’ obstacles." Jeremiah Say
57. “Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.” Jules Renard
58. "You review the past to assess the present and then determine what actions are necessary to change your future. You take what you know and apply it to how you want to grow. Thus, the power of journaling.” Melissa Steginus
59. "So often I feel like the self that I construct in writing feels truer to how I think of myself than the self I'm constructing in any other way." Yaa Gyasi
60. "I've kept a journal since I was 15. And I feel like it's been crucial to who I've become and trying to maintain stuff, a sense of who I am just for myself and not for other people." Tavi Gevinson
61. "Writing in your journal gives you a chance to go back over your day and extract meaning from a hurried meeting with a friend or retrieve the significance of some fleeting event." Janette Rainwater
62. "Journals contain ten categories of life patterns: longing, fear, mastery, (intentional) silences; key influences, hidden lessons, secret gifts, challenges, unfinished business, untapped potential. Each category corresponds to a way we engage or hold back in life." Alexandra Johnson
63. "We begin to sort through the differences between our real feelings, which are often secret, and our official feelings, those on record for public display." Julia Cameron
64. "We're drawn to making our mark, leaving a record to show we were here, and a journal is a great place to do it." Keri Smith
65. "I'll only live once, and this is a record of the life I'm living." Jason Shanahan
66. "I owe a good deal to this journal. By unburdening my mind on paper I feel, as it were, in some degree to get rid of it; it seems made over to a friend that hears it patiently, keeps it faithfully, and by never forgetting anything, is always ready to compare the past and present and thus to cheer and edify the future." Anne Lister
67. "These are the days" is the name of my main journal. This is to remind myself that "That there are the days" no matter what stage of life I'm in. Every season is significant in its own way and it's worth remembering. This is what motivates me to keep journaling daily about big and small moments alike. Kt Anderson
68. "You must remember that your story matters. What you write has the power to save a life, sometimes that life is your own." Stalina Goodwin
69. "I realized that journal writing was and is a powerful tool for personal growth, problem-solving, monitoring goals, and documenting my life over time." Bakari Chavanu
70. "As there are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write." William Makepeace Thackery (The History of Henry Esmond)
71. "Don't bend, don't water it down, don't try to make it logical, don't edit your own soul according to the fashion." Franz Kafka
72. "Keeping a journal will absolutely change your life in ways you've never imagined." Oprah Winfrey
Are you ready to start journaling? If you're ready to write but need some help getting started, check out our daily journal worksheet. You'll also find more journal prompts on our Free Resources page.