I claim that every woman in this century and in our culture sphere who has ventured into male-dominated institutions - 'literature' and 'aesthetics' are such institutions - must have experienced the desire for self-destruction.

Night thoughts have a different color than day thoughts, a different slant, more than anything else they know all the secret paths and chinks in the armor they can take advantage of to force their way into consciousness.

You love tenderly and warmly, but your love is like friendship. That's why you have good friends, you're sociable, sympathetic toward people. Until this dissatisfaction comes over you-you know what I'm talking about. Then you become moody, can even repulse people who are close to you, even people who love you, you know why. Those are bad times when everything goes cold, and they follow the times of great love.

The most beautiful thing under the sun is being under the sun.

Now writing is just working your way toward the border that the innermost secret draws around itself, and to cross that line would mean self-destruction. But writing is also an attempt to respect the borderline only for the truly innermost secret, and bit by bit to free the taboos around that core, difficult to admit as they are, from their prison of unspeakability. Not self-destruction but self-redemption. Not being afraid of unavoidable suffering.

There are secrets that ravage you, others that make you stronger.

I claim that every woman in this century and in our culture sphere who has ventured into male-dominated institutions - 'literature' and 'aesthetics' are such institutions - must have experienced the desire for self-destruction.