Jonathan Franzen Quotes

When you write, you don't really think of how honest you are being - it's only when you record that you understand how much of yourself you're giving.

If you really want to know yourself, start by writing a book.

When I go back and read my journals or fiction, I am always surprised. I may not remember having those thoughts, but they still exist and I know they are mine, and it's all part of making sense of who I am.

I'm not afraid to be bluntly honest in my songs, even if it means I'm discovering things about myself that I'd rather not.

I remember keeping a lot of journals and diaries and trying to form a complete thought just based off of those immediate, raw feelings. If anything, I was conscious about how I just always wanted to be as honest as possible, no matter how vulnerable it would make me seem.

I used to love writing in my journal.

One of the commitments I made to myself when I decided to write a book was to be brutally honest, particularly about myself.

It is always easier to write from the heart and deal with things in the present.

I hit 'record' whenever I'm going through a really hard time. I don't listen to it for a couple of days, so I have some perspective. If it's too personal to share, and I feel like would alienate the listeners, then I usually don't share that stuff.

I try as hard as I can to write from a personal place and be genuine.

Write a true, careless, slovenly impulsive, honest diary every day of your life.

I sometimes write as if I were talking to myself, or to a mirror, or to someone for the last time. There's this element of confrontation.

I have nothing but myself to write about, no facts, no theories, no opinions, no adventures, no sentiments, nothing but my own poor barren individualism, of considerable interest to me, but I do not know why I should presume it will be so to you. Egotism is not tiresome, or it ought not to be, if one is sincere about oneself; but it is so hard to be sincere. Well, never mind, I mean to be, and you know me well enough to see through me when I am humbugging.

To dance at all is to confront oneself. It is the art of honesty.

I am ashamed every day, and more ashamed the next. But I will spend the rest of my life in this living space writing these notes, this journal, recording my acts and reflections, finding some honor, some worth at the bottom of things. I want ten thousand pages that will stop the world.

How truly does this journal contain my real and undisguised thoughts--I always write it according to the humour I am in, and if astranger was to think it worth reading, how capricious--insolent & whimsical I must appear!--one moment flighty and half mad,--the next sad and melancholy. No matter! Its truth and simplicity are its sole recommendations.

If I was gonna write a book that was true, and I was gonna write a book that was honest, then I was gonna have to write about myself in very, very negative ways.

I am carrying out my plan, so long formulated, of keeping a journal. What I most keenly wish is not to forget that I am writing for myself alone. Thus I shall always tell the truth, I hope, and thus I shall improve myself. These pages will reproach me for my changes of mind.

The good diarist writes either for himself alone or for a posterity so distant that it can safely hear every secret and justly weigh every motive. For such an audience there is need neither of affectation nor of restraint. Sincerity is what they ask, detail, and volume; skill with the pen comes in conveniently, but brilliance is not necessary; genius is a hindrance even; and should you know your business and do it manfully, posterity will let you off mixing with great men, reporting famous affairs, or having lain with the first ladies in the land.

There are people who can write their memoirs with a reasonable amount of honesty, and there are people who simply cannot take themselves seriously enough. I think I might be the first to admit that the sort of reticence which prevents a man from exploiting his own personality is really an inverted sort of egotism.

I was already in a groove and decided to initially write down everything, as I would in an actual diary, and then go back and take out what I was too shy to reveal. But I wound up leaving more in than I imagined, and that was because I wanted to be transparent and real.

To have some account of my thoughts, manners, acquaintance and actions, when the hour arrives in which time is more nimble than memory, is the reason which induces me to keep a journal: a journal in which I must confess my every thought, must open my whole heart!

I feel it's much easier to be honest or be myself in songs when I'm playing. That's why I felt, 'You know, I'm going to write the truth.'

I think the best writing is full of honesty and conviction. A lot of people are afraid to reveal much of themselves.

I think people on Twitter know that I'm real and I speak from the heart most of the time, and sometimes I'm going to make a mistake.