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On Keeping a Notebook
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1966
8 people are currently reading
1578 people want to read
About the author
Joan Didion
100 books17k followersJoan Didion was an American writer and journalist. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism along with Gay Talese, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe.
Didion's career began in the 1950s after she won an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine. Over the course of her career, Didion wrote essays for many magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, Life, Esquire, The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. Her writing during the 1960s through the late 1970s engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the 1960s, the Hollywood lifestyle, and the history and culture of California. Didion's political writing in the 1980s and 1990s often concentrated on the subtext of political rhetoric and the United States's foreign policy in Latin America. In 1991, she wrote the earliest mainstream media article to suggest the Central Park Five had been wrongfully convicted. In 2005, Didion won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir of the year following the death of her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne. She later adapted the book into a play that premiered on Broadway in 2007. In 2013, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by president Barack Obama. Didion was profiled in the Netflix documentary The Center Will Not Hold, directed by her nephew Griffin Dunne, in 2017.
Didion's career began in the 1950s after she won an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine. Over the course of her career, Didion wrote essays for many magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, Life, Esquire, The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. Her writing during the 1960s through the late 1970s engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the 1960s, the Hollywood lifestyle, and the history and culture of California. Didion's political writing in the 1980s and 1990s often concentrated on the subtext of political rhetoric and the United States's foreign policy in Latin America. In 1991, she wrote the earliest mainstream media article to suggest the Central Park Five had been wrongfully convicted. In 2005, Didion won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir of the year following the death of her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne. She later adapted the book into a play that premiered on Broadway in 2007. In 2013, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by president Barack Obama. Didion was profiled in the Netflix documentary The Center Will Not Hold, directed by her nephew Griffin Dunne, in 2017.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 80 reviews
May 12, 2023
“I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be”
Me and my notebook until the end of time
Me and my notebook until the end of time
October 25, 2023
Mother fed us with this one
November 28, 2022
"it all comes back-; i think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. my stake is always, of course, in the unmentioned girl in the plaid silk dress. remember what it was to be me: that is always the point"
November 7, 2022
Joan Didion's voice and style appealed to me a lot! She had a powerful narrative voice that immediately pulled me into her headspace; I felt utterly regaled. I felt inspired and self-reflective after reading Didion's work. I believe the nonconsecutive internal dialogue style used by Didion was very effective at achieving her intent. The essay discusses to some degree the ego of the essayist, the self-centered nature of writing your own perspective: Didion explores it via a metanarrative of how that method can be executed. One could, following E.B. White's thinking in his essay titled "On the Essayist", possibly even discount Joan Didion if they analyze her work with a lazy and noncritical eye. "And even the essayist's escape from discipline is only a partial escape: the essay, although a relaxed form, imposes its own disciplines, raises its own problems, and these disciplines and problems soon become apparent and (we all hope) act as a deterrent to anyone wielding a pen merely because he entertains random thoughts or is in a happy or wandering mood," White writes. But Didion's work has in its supposed ramblings something to say, and that is, after all, the purpose of the essay.
January 5, 2023
I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be
May 9, 2023
Writing has often been a compulsive need for me, and rarely have I ever wanted to share my musings. It could be personal thoughts, or simple repetitions of sentences I'd heard/read and liked. This essay really resonated with how I feel sometimes, and I just want to share a few words I liked:
"Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss."
"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. At no point have I ever been able successfully to keep a diary; my approach to daily life ranges from the grossly negligent to the merely absent, and on those few occasions when I have tried dutifully to record a day's events, boredom has so overcome me that the results are mysterious at best."
"Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point." It isn't always about the account of the days, but who I was in those moments...
"Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss."
"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. At no point have I ever been able successfully to keep a diary; my approach to daily life ranges from the grossly negligent to the merely absent, and on those few occasions when I have tried dutifully to record a day's events, boredom has so overcome me that the results are mysterious at best."
"Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point." It isn't always about the account of the days, but who I was in those moments...
October 21, 2024
“remember what it was to be me: that is always the point.”
WHY did i leave my notebook back home):
WHY did i leave my notebook back home):
January 15, 2025
i love love love this i need to read her memoirs NEOW
November 25, 2025
To keep a notebook is not to record the events to the letter, it is to capture feelings, sentiments, emotions, even ardor, as they spring upon one. As they drift on and off your very human core. That is, what the notebook comes in hand for. To soothe the loneliness remedially.
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January 26, 2025Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.
March 2, 2022
"Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point." // "I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we find them attractive company or not." love love love
(*just read the essay not this illustrated version)
(*just read the essay not this illustrated version)
March 15, 2023
inspired me to start jotting down everything that happens to me / that i overhear / that i think to look at and use as material later!!!
October 13, 2024
I wrote a quote from this essay in the front of my notebook bc I rlly liked it
July 30, 2025
This lovely essay recounts Didion's thoughts on the significance of keeping a personal notebook when the entries can come across as seemingly insignificant to the outside observer. Likewise, she discusses the self-centeredness of the writer and the characteristics of a compulsive note-taker. The more I read of Didion's works, the more I am compelled by her distinct voice and style. The narration of her inner monologue and arrangement of words into prose is consistently captivating.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
"Keepers of private notebooks are a different
breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious
malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment
of loss."
[In reference to looking back on old notes and trying to decipher their original appeal] - "not only
have I always had trouble distinguishing between what happened and
what merely might have happened, but I remain unconvinced that the distinction,
for my purposes, matters."
"How it felt to me: that is getting closer to the truth about a notebook...Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point."
"What kind of magpie keeps this notebook?"
"But of course that is exactly it: not that I should ever use the line, but that I should remember the woman who said it and the afternoon I heard it."
[Upon reading a note] - "It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one’s
self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised
to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we find
them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and
surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night
and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is
going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we
could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what
we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already
lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeenyear-old,
presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me
to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-andorange-juice
and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford8 and their echoes sing “How High the Moon” on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could even improvise the dialogue.)"
Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
"Keepers of private notebooks are a different
breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious
malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment
of loss."
[In reference to looking back on old notes and trying to decipher their original appeal] - "not only
have I always had trouble distinguishing between what happened and
what merely might have happened, but I remain unconvinced that the distinction,
for my purposes, matters."
"How it felt to me: that is getting closer to the truth about a notebook...Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point."
"What kind of magpie keeps this notebook?"
"But of course that is exactly it: not that I should ever use the line, but that I should remember the woman who said it and the afternoon I heard it."
[Upon reading a note] - "It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one’s
self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised
to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we find
them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and
surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night
and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is
going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we
could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what
we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already
lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeenyear-old,
presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me
to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-andorange-juice
and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford8 and their echoes sing “How High the Moon” on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could even improvise the dialogue.)"
July 6, 2022
I read this in pdf format on a roadtrip. It made me think A LOT about my personal usage of notebooks and hopefully will help me use notebooks in a way thats more efficient for me.
"It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one’s self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford8 and their echoes sing “How High the Moon” on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could even improvise the dialogue.) The other one, a twenty-three-year-old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, skirts too long, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability and ignorance, an apparition all the more insistent for being so long banished.
It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you. "
Also I really enjoyed Joan Didion's writing style
"It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one’s self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford8 and their echoes sing “How High the Moon” on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could even improvise the dialogue.) The other one, a twenty-three-year-old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, skirts too long, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability and ignorance, an apparition all the more insistent for being so long banished.
It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you. "
Also I really enjoyed Joan Didion's writing style
July 11, 2025
I occasionally had a bit of trouble catching the line of thought through out the text, but that just may be because the limits of my competence is, unfortunately, put to test when reading writers of previous time than myself. For the most part I would like to think I got the main idea. She elaborated on something I've always valued; significance documentation as a way to keep up with one self. She makes a lot of seemingly irrelevant and random accounts of events in her life, like a random overheard conversation between two people. There's nothing much she can do with many of these accounts, nor are they all that necessary to her writing. These accounts-whether they are accurate or not- hold the signifcance of who she was at that time. The versions of herself she'll undoubtably forget, are in some ways kept alive in frivolous notes.
At least that's how I interpreted it
At least that's how I interpreted it
January 25, 2024
I thought it was very interesting to hear someone's thoughts and opinions on why they write in a notebook and what the purpose of it was to them. I found myself fully agreeing with the reasons and really enjoyed the examples and descriptions as i found it relatable. Most definitely readable and 100% recommended.
October 27, 2023
so many great insights into the purpose of writing and i love didion’s writing style which is full of beautiful descriptions similar to that of the secret history’s. read this for advanced rhetoric class.
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August 14, 2023“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. At no point have I ever been able successfully to keep a diary; my approach to daily life ranges from the grossly negligent to the merely absent, and on those few occasions when I have tried dutifully to record a day's events, boredom has so overcome me that the results are mysterious at best.”
April 17, 2024
“It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about… It all comes back. Even that recipe for sauerkraut: even that brings it back…I made the sauerkraut again last night and it did not make me feel any safer, but that is, as they say, another story.”
So true girl
So true girl
November 25, 2024
“We are not talking here about the kind of notebook that is patently for public consumption, a structural conceit for binding together a series of graceful pensées; we are talking about something private, about bits of the mind's string too short to use, an indiscriminate and erratic assemblage with meaning only for its maker.”
April 19, 2022
'We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayels alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.'
'Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point.'
'Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point.'
November 19, 2022
"Keepers of private notebooks are
a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children
afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss."
a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children
afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss."
Read
January 12, 2023"Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss."
August 21, 2024
remember what it was to be me???? that is always the point??????? keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss?????? i'll die
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September 3, 2023reading about people who enjoy writing somehow makes me love it even more
November 25, 2023
"It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about."
January 5, 2024
joan didion is god no notes
July 3, 2024
Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point.
August 28, 2024
why tf is this so me
Displaying 1 - 30 of 80 reviews