Susan Sontag on Keeping a Notebook

“I am reborn in the time retold in this notebook.” - Susan Sontag

I discovered this quote from Susan Sontag’s diaries in Brian Dillon’s excellent essay on Sontag, “On Talking To Yourself,” from Dillon’s book on essays, Essayism.

From the same Essays, Sontag again on keeping a journal: Superficial to understand the journal as just a receptacle for one's private, secret thoughts—like a confidante who is deaf, dumb and illiterate. In the journal I do not express myself more openly than I could do to any person; I create myself.

Wondering if Essayism is your kind of book? This quote from Essayism seems like a good litmus test: It seems to me you could divide writers into those who compile such lists — words to be looked up, words to be used, words merely to be admired — and those who do not. For better and worse I’m emphatically in the first group: every notebook I own has a running list of words on the last page.