A diary is useful during conscious, intentional, and painful spiritual evolutions. Then you want to know where you stand… An intimate diary is interesting especially when it records the awakening of ideas; or the awakening of the senses at puberty; or else when you feel yourself to be dying.
André Gide and other famous writers – including Virginia Woolf, Henry David Thoreau, Susan Sontag, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Anaïs Nin, Sylvia Plath, and more – explore the creative benefits of keeping a diary.