“I don’t keep a travel diary. I did keep a travel diary once and it was a big mistake. All I remember of that trip is what I bothered to write down. Everything else slipped away, as though my mind felt jilted by my reliance on pen and paper. For exactly the same reason I don’t travel with a camera. My holiday becomes the snapshots and anything I forget to record is lost.”

“I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn't write them down, I should probably forget all about them.' 'Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.”

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”

“My diary became more than a place to record daily events. It became a friend, the paper that it was made of was ready and willing to accept anything and everything I had to say.”

“I think that is the big danger in keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything.”

“I know a lot about when I was a little girl, because my sister used to keep a diary. Today I keep her diary in a drawer next to by bed. I like to see how her memories were the same as mine, but also different.”