I understand by the writing of a journal the absolute truthfulness and freedom of a soul communing with itself, the exclamations of pain, of joy, the dreaming, and the criticism of life. It must be a free running of the tired or compressed faculties, a restful abandonment, a strengthening reiteration, a satisfying outflow of emotions, self-confession, self-criticism, self-blame, a retention of beautiful things, of inspiring things and of knowledge, a following and unveiling of ideas, a development of philosophies, an exhortation to the fulfillment of individual perfection, a reminder of the clearer and higher moments in the intellectual life and of the kinder, nobler moments of the human life.
Anaïs Nin, in a diary entry dated 18 March 1925, from The Early Diary of Anaïs Nin: 1923–1927
