"I haven't kept a diary since I was seventeen. I think it was soon after my baccalauréat that I gave it up for reasons I'm not sure of, because from the age of twelve or thirteen I had written one religiously. (Note to self: Look for my diaries in the boxes in the cellar.) I remember sticking all kinds of things in them: tickets from films and plays I had been to see, leaves I had picked up on walks and bills for meals I had eaten on café terraces. They were a record of what I had done when, down to the nearest minute. I think I held on to them as 'evidence' of some kind. They helped me to find my place in the world and, in a broader sense, to prove to myself that I really existed. I suppose I must have decided at some point that I no longer needed to do that, because I gave up writing a diary, stopped telling the story of my life and tried to just live it instead."
- from "The Red Notebook" by Antoine Laurain. a beautiful little treasure of a book.
