I never feel so much myself as when I'm in a hot bath.

Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little?

Now I know what loneliness is, I think. Momentary loneliness, anyway. It comes from a vague core of the self - - like a disease of the blood, dispersed throughout the body so that one cannot locate the matrix, the spot of contagion.

But I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure at all. How did I know that someday―at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere―the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?

If I was going to fall, I would hang on to my small comforts, at least, for as long as I possibly could.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again.

I had been alone more than I could have been had I gone by myself.