In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.

Once again St. Nicholas Day Has even come to our hideaway; It won't be quite as fun, I fear, As the happy day we had last year. Then we were hopeful, no reason to doubt That optimism would win the bout, And by the time this year came round, We'd all be free, and safe and sound. Still, let's not forget it's St. Nicholas Day, Though we've nothing left to give away. We'll have to find something else to do: So everyone please look in their shoe!

Outside, you don't hear a single bird, and a deathly, oppressive silence hangs over the house and clings to me as if it were going to drag me into the deepest regions of the underworld.... I wander from room to room, climb up and down the stairs and feel like a songbird whose wings have been ripped off and who keeps hurling itself against the bars of its dark cage.

This week I've been reading a lot and doing little work. That's the way things ought to be. That's surely the road to success.

In the future I'm going to devote less time to sentimentality and more time to reality.

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world!

Don't condemn me, remember rather that sometimes I, too, can reach the bursting point.