The written sentence earns its force through exactness of observation rather than sincerity of feeling; a well-made phrase can outlast the emotion that produced it. Renard treats the search for the precise word as the writer's primary labor, above the display of sentiment.
A truth about human nature gains power by being stated in the fewest possible words, so that the reader completes it rather than being told it. Brevity is not decoration but a method of forcing the reader into active recognition.
Keeping a private daily record turns the self into an object of continuous observation, so that even grief and vanity become material to be noted. The writer stands slightly apart from his own experience, recording it while living it.
Renard records that writers are moved as much by jealousy of rivals and hunger for recognition as by love of art, and he includes himself in this diagnosis. He treats these small vanities as ordinary and unavoidable features of the literary world rather than as shameful exceptions.