Diary Entries Examples

Diary entries, or journal entries, are the thoughts and musings of a specific person each day or on various days throughout the year. Many people keep diaries or journals to record day-to-day events, as well as their emotions and reactions to those events, so that they can look back on them in the future. In addition to creating something to look back on, many people keep diaries because writing is cathartic-they are able to write their emotions down and, thus, get rid of holding those emotions inside.

Diary entries follow the same loose form. They often include the date, and sometimes include a salutation, such as "Dear Diary." They are often not lengthy-no more than a page.

Entry from Leo Tolstoy January 25, 1851

I've fallen in love or imagine that I have; went to a party and lost my head. Bought a horse which I don't need at all.

Entry from the diary of a 9 year-old Ernest Hemingway:

My name is Ernest Miller Hemingway I was born on July 21 1899. My favourite authors are Kipling, O. Henry and Steuart Edward White. My favourite flower is Lady Slipper and Tiger Lily. My favourite sports are Trout fishing, Hiking, shooting, football and boxing. My favourite studies are English, Zoology and Chemistry. I intend to travel and write.

From President Harry Truman, July 25, 1945:

We met at 11:00 AM today. That is, Stalin, Churchill and the U.S. president. But I had a most important session with Lord Mountbatten and General Marshall before that. We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley era, after Noah and his fabulous ark. Anyway, we think we have found the way to cause a disintegration of the atom. An experiment in the New Mexico desert was startling-to put it mildly. Thirteen pounds of the explosive caused a crater six hundred feet deep and twelve hundred feet in diameter, knocked over a steel tower a half mile away, and knocked men down ten thousand yards away.