Growing old is partly an inescapable process of accommodation and adjustment.

I am afraid of dying-but being dead, oh yes, that to me is often an appealing prospect.

Recently I began reading my old diaries. Back to before the war. Gradually I became very depressed. The reason for that is probably that I wrote only when there were obstacles and halts to the flow of life, seldom when everything was smooth and even. ... As I read I distinctly felt what a half-truth a diary presents.

Every war carries within it the war which will answer it. Every war is answered by a new war, until everything, everything is smashed.

I can always paint very well with my eyes, but with my hands it doesn't always work out.

Where do all the women who have watched so carefully over the lives of their beloved ones get the heroism to send them to face the cannon?

I do not want to die... until I have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated the seed that was placed in me, until the last small twig has grown.