Sarah Manguso, from her memoir Ongoingness:

“Why, then, should I continue writing the diary?

In it I digest the time that passes, file it away so I no longer need to think about it, and if I spend all my time thinking about the past I’d stop moving into the future. I begin to write, but no—I’d keep moving. How foolish to believe myself powerful enough to stop time just by thinking.”

How foolish, but how alluring.