When we begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them.

Better to write twaddle, anything, than nothing at all.

In fact, isn't it a joy - there is hardly a greater one - to find a new book, a living book, and to know that it will remain with you while life lasts?

To long for everything: sorrow; to accept everything: joy.

Winter is a terrible time for thin people - terrible! Why should it hound them down, fasten on them, worry them so? Why not, for a change, take a nip, take a snap at the fat ones who wouldn't notice? But no! It is sleek, warm, cat-like summer that makes the fat one's life a misery. Winter is all for bones.

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.... This all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now that I have wrestled with it, it's no longer so. I feel happy- deep down. All is well.

We can do whatever we wish to do provided our wish is strong enough. But the tremendous effort needed- one doesn't always want to make it-does one? ... But what else can be done? What's the alternative? What do you want most to do? That's what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties.