"The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him?

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.

Each new day is a blank page in the diary of your life. The secret of success is in turning that diary into the best story you possibly can.

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

I've been keeping a diary for thirty-three years and write in it every morning. Most of it's just whining but every so often there'll be something I can use later: a joke a description a quote. It's an invaluable aid when it comes to winning arguments. 'That's not what you said on February 3 1996 ' I'll say to someone.

I'm not good at future planning. I don't plan at all. I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. I don't have a day planner and I don't have a diary. I completely live in the now not in the past not in the future.