In spite of everything, I still have my good old sense of humor.

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.

because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.

I can't think logically about who I am or where I am going. I have been very ecstatic, horribly depressed, shocked, elated, enlightened, and enervated.

It is so much safer not to feel, not to let the world touch me.

I need the reality of other people, work, to fulfill myself. Must never become a mere mother and housewife.

I have been holding a dialogue with myself and girding myself to stand fast without running.