Top 90 Notebook Quotes of All Time

A short, finished list rather than an endless feed: 90 of the best notebook quotes ever written, picked out of the full notebook archive on QuoteForever. You will find Marissa Moss, Michael Dirda, Rachel Hollis and Kate Dicamillo among them.

Read the list top to bottom, or use it as a starting point - every author name links to everything else they said, and every quote has its own page you can share or turn into an image.

1

Every great love starts with a great story.

2

A very elementary exercise in psychology, not to be dignified by the name of psycho-analysis, showed me, on looking at my notebook, that the sketch of the angry professor had been made in anger. Anger had snatched my pencil while I dreamt. But what was anger doing there? Interest, confusion, amusement, boredom--all these emotions I could trace and name as they succeeded each other throughout the morning. Had anger, the black snake, been lurking among them? Yes, said the sketch, anger had.

3

There is something so hopeful about a diary, a journal, a new notebook, which Joan Didion and Virginia Woolf both wrote about. A blog. Perhaps we all are waiting for someone to discover us.

4

There came this point where I sat down with all my notebooks and I had to start to write, when I thought: this whole notion of writing for the person who understands nothing, the average reader ... He has to die! I can't have him in my head. And so the person I started writing for was the homicide detective.

5

When traveling, I usually keep a notebook: when home at my desk, the notebook serves mainly to remind me how little I saw at the time, or rather how I was noticing the wrong things. But the notes do spur memories, and it's the memories I trust. The wine stain on the page may tell me more than the words there, which usually strike me as hopelessly inadequate.

6

I was sickly as a child and gravitated to books and drawing. During my early teen years, I spent hundreds of hours at my window, sketching neighborhood children at play. I sketched and listened, and those notebooks became the fertile field of my work later on. There is not a book I have written or a picture I have drawn that does not, in some way, owe them its existence.

7

For years I walked around with the phrase "Green River" because I had seen that on a soda fountain drink when I was probably 8 or 9 years old, and I went, 'Gee, I like that.' Another one was "Lodi", which I thought sounded really cool. I got this cheap little empty plastic notebook at my local drugstore, and bought a little slab of filler paper and the very first title I wrote in it was "Proud Mary". I had no idea what that title meant.

8

The reward is in the risk. You can’t stay hidden inside Grandpa’s overprotective cloak forever. You’ve seemed like you needed to grow out of that for a while. Mom and Dad going away, and the red notebook, these things just helped. Now it’s up to you to

9

The Little Paris Kitchen' was about my experience of living and cooking in Paris, 'My little French Kitchen' about my travels around France and 'Rachel Khoo's Kitchen Notebook' was a peek into my personal cooking diary with influences from around the world.

10

Sometimes I'll get ideas in the middle of the night. Sometimes at 3 in the morning I'll get up, and I have a notebook by my bed and have to write it down. I'll dream an idea. Sometimes I see an image online, and I think, 'OK, let's make that a three-layer cake!'

11

My favorite movies are 'The Notebook,' 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,' and 'Wolf Children.'

12

I love auditioning. Since 'The Notebook' and 'Wedding Crashers,' I don't have to audition anymore, and I miss it. You get to show your interpretation of the character. I get nervous when I don't audition. What if they hate what I want to do?

13

The only kind of notebook I actively dislike is the steno pad, entirely because of that vertical line down the middle of the page. I presume it has some arcane secretarial use, but to me, it's both ugly and confusing.

14

I'm very much an action movie type of person. My wife is more of a 'Notebook' type of girl.

15

When Bruce Lee gets his cameo in 'The Green Hornet' - as one of the drawings in Kato's notebook - it clarifies what the film is: an unrealized sketch. A sketch can afford to allude to a point of view. Moviemakers need to show their point of view, something this shrug of a movie never gets around to doing.

16

Ages ago, when I published 'Amelia's Notebook,' I'd sent it to traditional publishers I'd been working with, but nobody knew what to do with it. Tricycle was this small publisher who didn't know any better, and they took a chance.

17

After 12 years as an Air Force officer, I turned in my wings for a notebook, earned a law degree and went to work for Proctor & Gamble.

18

I've found, as I've gotten older, it's really difficult to write on the road. There are so many distractions, so many people in and out of the bus. It's really difficult to do. So I just keep a notebook with me, and I jot down ideas. I schedule appointments to write.

19

'Letters From Home' is a 90,000-word WWII love story with a twist, aptly summarized as 'The Notebook' meets 'Saving Private Ryan.'

20

I'll hear a phrase around me that someone says... I'll write it down in my notebook, and as soon as I'll sit down with my guitar, I'll come up with the rest of the arrangement there.

21

Kids who want to become writers might want to start carrying a small notebook in their backpack. I encourage people to sit down in malls and listen, just listen, to how people talk.

22

I was known as a dogged, unflappable live reporter, the kind who runs barefoot to the camera, high heels in one hand, notebook in the other.

23

Sometimes the very best of all summer books is a blank notebook. Get one big enough, and you can practice sketching the lemon slice in your drink or the hot lifeguard on the beach or the vista down the hill from your cabin.

24

I'm an internet junkie. There, I said it. That's the first step, right? I also have a thing for making lists. Oh man, nothing beats turning to a fresh, clean page in a notebook, taking out a nice pen, and starting a list. There's so much potential there. So much to do, so little time! So hey, why not spend some of that time making a list.

25

I wrote poetry off and on in high school, when I could manage to get out of gym classes and sports - using my allergies as an excuse - and climb the hill behind school till I found a nice place to settle down with a notebook and look at Spokane spread out below.

26

More than conventional picture books, the notebook format allows me to leap from words to images, and this free-flowing back-and-forth inspires my best work. It reflects the way I think - sometimes visually, sometimes verbally - with the pictures not there just to illustrate the text but to replace it, to tell their own story.

27

Tim sends me a fairly ambitious workup in notebook form noting the passages we're going to cover and the chronology of the biblical events, and his commentaries on those things he's read and written.

28

I've always been a big fan of Rachel McAdams. I saw her for the first time in 'Mean Girls,' then I saw her in 'The Notebook.' I've always wanted a role like 'The Notebook,' this heartfelt love story. I think Rachel's so incredible.

29

I went to dinner with my mother-in-law and I just realized I was talking in sound bites to her and expecting her to laugh every time I said anything or be jotting something down in a notebook. So you have to kind of really have a talk with yourself after you've done a press tour and say, 'Chill out!'

30

I carry a small spiral notebook with me at all times and have been doing this for many years. There's a shoe box in my closet filled with these notebooks, each riddled with notes and impressions, ideas, schemes, and soup recipes.

31

Ever since I was a child, I've kept boxes and drawers and pages of things that I liked. I suppose that it constitutes a journal of sorts, but it's not in a ledger or a notebook.

32

There's a cafe in Mosman near where I lived and if I have any days off I go there at 10 in the morning with my notebook, sit in the same chair, order the same breakfast and coffee, write my thoughts down, and chat, have the same conversation with the owner.

33

When I got in trouble, my mom would make me read or write - I would have to write my name over and over and over again. It gave me great penmanship, but I also just liked to write. Every time I would go to the store, I would buy a notebook. I had thousands of them.

34

When I think about my ideal free day, it usually involves going into London and sitting in a nice coffeehouse with cake and coffee, but I would probably still have my notebook in my pocket.

35

I have a friend who calls me the queen of the nightmares because I've always had really bad nightmares. I keep a notebook by the side of my bed, so I'll wake up in the night from a bad dream, and my heart's pounding, and I'm really scared, but I write it down, and sometimes I get ideas for books that way.

36

The job of the iPad should be to be so powerful and capable that you never need a notebook.

37

Has anybody seen 'The Notebook' and not cried? I don't know, I don't know if that's the case. It sort of hangs around for a while.

38

I was a very creative child. I played the saxophone and piano, and I was always writing poetry and stories, or drawing in my notebook. I just tried to express myself through as many creative outlets as possible. And in high school, I started to get really into photography and videography and would spend hours working on it.

39

My writing routine is: get son off to school and sit down at 8 A.M. I read what I wrote the day before, and then write longhand, into a notebook. I prefer paper and pen because it feels closer to my brain.

40

I watch 'The Notebook.' I love romantic movies. I love romantic comedies.

41

I work a lot; I love to compose, ponder, and take notes when preparing for a role. I cut all the scenes, collate the images, form the character and shape its personality, then I make meticulous notes and transcribe each scene on my notebook.

42

Every year, I looked forward to Oprah Winfrey's Favorite Things episode. I watched with my notebook computer in my lap so I could Google the items and order them for the friends and family on my holiday gift-giving list.

43

I have a notebook of concepts. There are titles everywhere if you are looking for them. I pull from them. There is a secret list that I keep for myself about what I want to sing about, and those are the ones I know I am not going to give up for someone else.

44

I really started considering myself a writer when I was about seven or eight years old. I wrote stories from my dreams and kept them all in a notebook that I still have.

45

When I was 20 years old, I was living in Ireland, going to school in Cork. There was this girl in my film class that I was kind of flirting with. We had this notebook that we passed back and forth. We would write 10 questions and then pass it back while we were supposedly paying attention.

46

It sounds corny, but I wanted to be the change I wanted to see in the world. I used to have that on my notebook in school.

47

I cried when I watched 'The Notebook' for the first time. Any guy who tells you they didn't cry when they watched 'The Notebook's just lying.

48

The first movie I ever cried at was when I was 10 years old and saw 'The Notebook' in theaters. I was like, 'Whoa, so weird. Crying at a movie? I'm not supposed to do that. So weird.' I didn't know that art could make you do that.

49

I was so shy. I used to cross the street so I wouldn't even have to talk to my relatives, much less strangers. That's not shy, that's wise. But I found that that when you had a journalist's notebook in your hand it wasn't really you, you see.

50

Who didn't cry at 'The Notebook?' If you didn't cry at 'The Notebook,' something is probably wrong with you.

51

'The Notebook' wrecks me! I cry like a 6-year-old girl at the end.

52

'The Notebook' made me cry! It got me.

53

'The Notebook' was beautiful, and I was crying because its hero and heroine had died together.

54

I do think 'The Notebook' is a darn good movie.

55

I kept a notebook, a surreptitious journal in which I jotted down phrases, technical data, miscellaneous information, names, dates, places, telephone numbers, thoughts, and a collection of other data I thought was necessary or might prove helpful.

56

I've tried digital planners and fancy planners and date books galore, but my tried and true is actually just a large spiral-bound notebook.

57

I wrote and drew my own books on notebook paper, and I'd staple 'em together. I had my own fictional company, and we had our own thinly veiled offshoots of whatever was popular at Marvel and DC at the time.

58

Ever since third grade, I had a notebook and was putting together words just for fun. I liked different etymologies, different slang that came out in different eras. Different languages. Different dialects.

59

I type everything on my computer. I carry a writer's notebook everywhere, in case I am struck by an idea. I forget things unless I write them down. I'm planning to learn how to dictate into my cellphone; I think that will be very helpful, too.

60

If someone is alone reading my poems, I hope it would be like reading someone's notebook. A record. Of a place, beauty, difficulty. A familiar daily struggle.

61

I notice that my characters go out to dinner and have fun and take these great trips, but I spend so much time on their lives, I don't have much of a personal life of my own. I have to sort of remember to fill out that little notebook on me.

62

Whether you write down your to-do lists in a notebook or use a tool like Evernote, to-do lists can be a real life-saver, since it reduces the stress of trying to remember things like a meeting or what you need to pick up at the grocery store.

63

I started a novel in the back of a notebook, and it was great because it looked like I was taking notes. And I just, I kept it up, it was sort of fantasy, it was part soap opera. It was utterly dreadful, but that's how I got hooked.

64

I always have a notebook with me, I eavesdrop; I write down what people say. It's very rare that one of those things will provoke a story, but I think that that kind of paying attention all the time, and keeping everything open, lets the stories come in. But where they come from is still a mystery to me.

65

I am always getting ideas for song lyrics and keep a notebook handy. Nowadays, I take a laptop with me everywhere, because I have a stock of handwritten lyrics in it.

66

Farmers will not see good days unless their produce gets a guaranteed price. Even a notebook, a pen, or a soap has a price printed on it, but the milk that farmers sell do not have any price.

67

When I was in high school, I had a notebook that I filled up with rules about lying. It must have been a hundred pages long - one hundred pages of rules about lying!

68

I'm giving all that I have in this life. I'm opening up my notebook, and I'm saying everything in there out loud.

69

You can't compartmentalise everything but the more you do that the easier it is. Keeping a notebook is a good way of dealing with it. You can rest from any thoughts if you put them down on paper.

70

I have a wonderful piano that I really love: a handmade Yamaha grand. Sometimes I'm sitting there, and it sounds so good that I find some little melody or a phrase that leads me into a song, but probably more often than not, I actually grab a notebook.

71

'The Notebook' gets me every time. It's a great love story. Boy from the wrong side of the tracks. They get on each other's nerves, but they can't live without each other. It almost makes me shed a tear.

72

I owe a lot to Rosshan, who literally plucked me from obscurity as a keyboard performer and handed me the background score of 'Notebook.'

73

If I was at school and one of my friends said something funny, I'd write it down in a notebook and take it to the writers meetings. I never told my friends about it. I just thought I could incorporate stuff that was true to life.

74

'The Notebook' is one of my favorite love stories.

75

Well, ever since I was six, I had a little notebook with coverages and notes on the mental aspect of a game, what it meant to be a leader and what type of attitude you had to have.

76

When I made 'The Notebook,' the director, Nick Cassavetes, who is John's son, used to show me his father's movies.

77

I sleep with a notebook next to me, and most nights I sleep with my guitar next to me.

78

I sat down and wrote what I remembered about being nine, and that eventually became 'Amelia's Notebook.'

79

I like Noah from 'The Notebook.' One - hundred percent. I fall in love with him so hard.

80

When I sit down with my notebook, when I start scribbling words across the page, I find out what I'm feeling.

81

I've always kept a notebook in my pocket, I've always written stuff down since I was a kid.

82

I never carry a notebook while walking around London. I just pick those things up. I'm very good at quizzes.

83

Revolution is Tupac showing a young artist that he can scribble in a notebook and it's worth a lot.

84

I have a notebook, and I know what decisions will be made in pre-production. Everything is pre-determined in the pre-production period. I visually design the whole thing, and I know when things will happen.

85

I carry a notebook and write down things to do, and I write out thoughts and stuff like that.

86

I keep this crazy notebook of song ideas.

87

Everything about writing is hard for me except for that - the names pop into my head. That's one of the reasons why I always make sure I have a notebook with me.

88

I keep a writer's notebook and also put all my daily schedules and to-do lists in it.

89

For me, using a notebook every day keeps me on track! Some people use planners; those are great, too.

90

I keep a notebook of ideas, and sometimes ideas form in your head that you just have to write down, or you'll forget them.

More Notebook quotes

This is the short list. The full notebook quotes collection holds every quote on the subject in the archive, and the picture quotes are ready to share as images.

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