100 Journal Quotes that Make You Want to Write

By Stephanie Kirby

Writer, Entrepreneur and Inspirational quote curator

Published September 11, 2022

Writing your thoughts is powerful in many ways as these journal quotes show.

Journaling is the simple process of writing out your thoughts, beliefs, ideas, fears, worries, and anything else that you want.

It could be writing a list of things you are thankful for or just recording the events of your day.

Journaling is a powerful way to reflect on the situations in your life as well as an effective form of self-care for many.

These are some of the reasons why some of the most successful people throughout history have kept journals.

If you’re interested in building the habit of journaling in your own life, these journal quotes can help motivate and guide you.

If you enjoy this article, check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily motivation.

If you want more motivational quotes, check out our motivational quotes category page.

Journal quotes about the benefits of journaling

1. “Journaling is like whispering to one’s self and listening at the same time.” – Mina Murray

2. “Journal writing, when it becomes a ritual for transformation, is not only life-changing but life-expanding.” – Jen Williamson

3. “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

4. “The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent.” – Susan Sontag

5. “In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself.” – Susan Sontag

6. “Journaling is a great way to pay attention to “how it all came to be.” In looking back, you gain insight into (and appreciation for) your challenges, lessons, and perseverance.” – Melissa Stenginus

7. “People who keep journals have life twice.” – Jessamyn West

8. “Your subconscious mind is trying to help you all the time. That’s why I keep a journal – not for chatter but for mostly the images that flow into the mind or little ideas. I keep a running journal, and I have all of my life, so it’s like your gold mine when you start writing.” – Jim Harrison

9. “Journal writing is a voyage to the interior.” – Christina Baldwin

10. “We can only open our hearts to those we utterly trust, such as the accepting page.” – Gillie Bolton

11. “If kids reflect on their days, they will become better problem-solvers of life.” – Trevor Carss

12. “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

Journal quotes about self-care

13. “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

14. “Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open” – Natalie Goldberg

15. “What a comfort is this journal I tell myself to myself and throw the burden on my book and feel relieved.” – Anne Lister

16. “Writing is medicine. It is an appropriate antidote to injury. It is an appropriate companion for any difficult change.” — Julia Cameron

17. “Journaling can be an excellent way to increase self-awareness, discover and change habits.” – Akiroq Brost

18. “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking, what I am looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” – Joan Didion

19. “Journaling is paying attention to the inside for the purpose of living well from the inside out.” – Lee Wise

20. “This pouring thoughts out on paper has relieved me. I feel better and full of confidence and resolution.” – Diet Eman

21. “Documenting little details of your everyday life becomes a celebration of who you are.” – Carolyn V. Hamilton

22. “Writing eases my suffering. Writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.” – Gao Xingjian

23. “In the journal I am at ease.” – Anais Nin

24. “Just as a good rain clears the air, a good writing day clears the psyche.” – Julia Cameron

25. “Whether you’re keeping a journal or writing as a meditation, it’s the same thing. What’s important is you’re having a relationship with your mind.” – Natalie Goldberg

26. “Write hard and clear about what hurts.” — Ernest Hemingway

27. “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

Powerful journal quotes

28. “I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” – Anne Frank

29. “A journal is your completely unaltered voice.” – Lucy Dacus

30. “Writing is powerful communication: perhaps even more so than speech, as it does not disappear on the breath.” – Gillie Bolton

31. “Journal writing gives us insights into who we are, who we were, and who we can become.” – Sandra Marinella

32. “Keeping a journal: The short entries are often as dry as instant tea. Writing them down is like pouring hot water over them to release their aroma.” – Ernst Jünger

33. “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. This, you are more deeply enjoy your journey each day.” – Hal Elrod

34. “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

35. “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

36. “Putting pen to paper is a mystical way to access your most profound truths” – Marie Forleo

37. “Journal what you love, what you hate, what’s in your head, what’s important. Journaling organizes your thoughts; allows you to see things in a concrete way that otherwise you might not see. Focus on what you think you need to find in your art.” – Kay Walkingstick

38. “If you haven’t been journaling through this, now is a good time to start. One day, you and people who love and loved you and people who will never know you may want to look back to understand how you survived.” – Darnell Lamont Walker

39. “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

40. “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
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of writing quotes that will inspire you to begin your own writing journey.

Journal quotes that will make your day

41. “I’ve always written. There’s a journal which I kept from about 9 years old.” – Maya Angelou

42. “I wanted to write in my journal but couldn’t bring myself to. There are so many shades to what passed through me in those days. And I would shrink from committing myself to paper because the light would change before the word was out, the ink was dry.” – Audre Lorde

43. “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

44. “Once a day, especially in the early years of life and study, call yourselves to an account what new ideas, what new proposition or truth you have gained, what further confirmation of known truths, and what advances you have made in any part of knowledge.” – Isaac Watts

45. “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” – Louis L’Amour

46. “And so I just kept writing to myself.” – Kimberly Novosel

47. “Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain.” – Jack London

48. “The only thing I have done religiously in my life is keeping a journal, I have hundreds of them, filled with feathers, flowers, photographs, and words – without locks, open on my shelves.” – Terry Tempest Williams

49. “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” – William Wordsworth

50. “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” — Flannery O’Connor

More journal quotes and sayings

51. “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. Take long walks in the woods.” – Robin S. Sharma

52. “I like to meditate, take baths at home with essential oils and salts and write in a journal.” – Camille Kostek

53. “One of the few things that will remain of this time is what artists are doing. They are the journal and the diary of our time.” – Robert Wilson

54. “When I write notes in my journal, I’m just trying to scribble down as much as possible. Later on, I decide whether to follow some of those first impressions or whether to abandon them.” – Natasha Trethewey

55. “I have obsessed about my weight in some sort of way all my life. I used to write in my journal what I weighed every day.” – Valerie Bertinelli

56. “Some journal writers choose to password-protect their site, which is either an incredibly responsible act or a paranoid one.” – Jami Attenberg

57. “Keeping a journal is the number-one best way to develop your written voice.” – Camille Perri

58. “I have a little pocket journal. I just put the pen on the paper and just go.” – Tash Sultana

59. “When my journal appears, many statues must come down.” – Duke of Wellington

60. “I try and journal every day, and that’s where a lot of my lyric comes from.” – Jessie Baylin

Inspirational Journal Quotes To Get You Going

61. “Successful journals break the deadlock of introspective obsession.” ― Alexandra Johnson.

62. “What happens to us is not as important as the meaning we assign to it. Journaling helps sort this out.” — Michael Hyatt

63. “Writing bridges the inner and outer worlds and connects the paths of action and reflection.” — Christina Baldwin

64. Journaling is a way to be a good steward of the Spirit’s illuminations.” — John Piper

65. “Exploring the thought process through visual journaling is essential in a world that is in continuous change.” — Michael Bell

66. “My journal is my life’s companion.” — Christina Baldwin

67. “The habit of writing for my eye is good practice. It loosens the ligaments.” — Virginia Woolf

68. “When you choose to write using yourself as the source of the story, you are choosing to confront all the silences in which your story has been protectively wrapped. Your job as a writer is to respectfully, determinedly, free the story from the silences and free yourself from both.” — Christina Baldwin

69. “A few italics really do relieve your feelings.” — Lucy Maud Montgomery

70. Keep a diary and one day it’ll keep you.” — Mae West.

Journal Quotes To Keep You Inspired As You Write

71. “If you’re serious about becoming a wealthy, powerful, sophisticated, healthy, influential, cultured, and unique individual, keep a journal. Don’t trust your memory.” – Jim Rohn

72. “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 Thackeray

73. “I guess in my diary I’m not afraid to be boring. It’s not my job to entertain anyone in my diary.” – David Sedaris

74. “If you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you.” – Madeleine L’Engle

75. “Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter. And lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.” – Jack London

76. “A diary is useful during conscious, intentional, and painful spiritual evolutions.” – Andres Gide

77. “If there was no other motive in view except to have the privilege of reading over our journals and for our children to read, it would pay for the time spent in writing it.” – Wilford Woodruff

78. “Writing is my way of expressing – and thereby eliminating – all the various ways we can be wrong-headed.” – Zadie Smith

79. “I started writing a journal, and I was learning so much along the way.” – Jay Leno

80. “Journaling increases your self-confidence. It helps you look at far you’ve come and how you overcame previous seemingly ‘impossible’ obstacles.” – Jeremiah Say

Journal Quotes To Self Express Yourself In The Best Way

81. “Journal: fitting your heart and soul into ruled lines.” — Terri Guillemets

82. “I find the experience of keeping a journal much more creative on paper than on a computer.” — Keri Smith

83. “Keeping a journal implies hope.” — Erica Jong

84. “Like the journey of our lives the journal writing journey is not linear, but twists and turns and loops around to old, familiar ground, with many detours along the way.” — Marlene Schiwy

85. “Sitting for even five minutes with a journal offers a rare cease-fire in the battle of daily life.” — Alexandra Johnson

86. “The best time to begin keeping a journal is whenever you decide to.” — Hannah Hinchman

87. “If I get lost, this journal will be like a record of who I was, a trail of bread crumbs to find my way back.” — Jonathan Tropper

88. “I would consider my diary to serve the same purpose as going for a walk or a run. They are all physical ways of clearing a mental landscape.” — Chet Faker

89. “Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk—away from any open flames—to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.” — George Singleton

90. “To keep a journal is to learn how to play. Deeply. Even when a page is recording hard, impossible things, if judgment is suspended, there’s always a surprise or shift.” — Alexandra Johnson

Journal Quotes To Express Yourself In Writing

91. “Because being CEO can feel lonely, I journal religiously as a way to express my thoughts, feelings, and aspirations. Looking back at earlier entries helps me reflect on challenges and celebrate progress and successes.” — Rana el Kaliouby

92. “The benefits of keeping a journal is that you can record all of your ideas in one place anytime and at anywhere.” — Journey Cloud

93. “Preserve your memories, keep them well, what you forget you can never retell.” — Louisa May Alcott

94. “And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” — Sylvia Plath

95. “If you want to practice or improve your conversational skills, the best thing to do is to start a journal.” — Jeremiah Say

96. “I’ve been keeping a diary for 33 years and write in it every morning. Most of it’s just whining, but every so often there’ll be something I can use later: a joke, a description, a quote.” — David Sedaris

97. “Journaling is a good way to help us to stop, take a step back and reflect on ourselves.” — Journey Cloud

98. “A good journal entry- like a good song, or sketch, or photograph- ought to break up the habitual and life away the film that forms over the eye, the finger, the tongue, the heart. A good journal entry ought to be a love letter to the world.” — Anthony Doerr

99. “Writing down your feelings help you to “brain-dump” your anxieties, frustrations and pains on a journal.” — Journey Cloud

100. “Journaling helps you to see and appreciate how strong you are within.” — Jeremiah Say

Which of these journal quotes is your favorite?

From helping you see the good things in your life to helping you work through issues and struggles that you face, journaling can help you in all areas of your life.

There’s something nice about being able to record your thoughts in private and work through them.

Journals can also help you remember the past.

We’ve learned a lot from the journals of others such as Anne Frank.

But even if your journals don’t someday make the top seller list, they are something that you can look back on to see the progress you’ve made in your own life.