Words were the only net to catch a mood, the only sure weapon against oblivion. – Jan Struther, Mrs. Miniver, 1930s

A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. – Edna St. Vincent Millay

The expression “to write something down” suggests a descent of thought to the fingers whose movements immediately falsify it. – William Gass, “Habitations of the Word,” Kenyon Review, October 1984

It seems to me that the problem with diaries, and the reason that most of them are so boring, is that every day we vacillate between examining our hangnails and speculating on cosmic order. – Ann Beattie, Picturing Will, 1989