What do I actually mean when I say 'delusion'? I mean the absurdity of the claim that the excessive atomic armament of both sides creates a 'balance of terror' that reduces the danger of war; that in the long run it even offers a minimum of security. ... Hence the cynical saying: He who strikes first will die second.

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.

Between killing and dying there's a third way: live

The past is not dead - it isn't even past

It is this ability to bear what is unbearable and to go on living, to go on doing what one is used to doing—it is this uncanny ability that the existence of the human race is based on.

To prevent wars, people must criticize, in their own country, the abuses that occur in their own country. The role taboos play in the preparation for war. The number of shameful secrets keeps growing incessantly, boundlessly. How meaningless all censorship taboos become, and how meaningless the consequences for overstepping them, when your life is in danger.

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.