I simply can't imagine the world will ever be normal again for us. I do talk about "after the war," but it's as if I'm talking about a castle in the air, something that can never come true.
There's plenty of room for everyone in the world. Enough money, riches, and beauty for all to share. God has made enought for everyone, so let us all begin then by sharing it fairly.
In the book Soldiers on the Home Front, I was greatly struck by the fact that in childbirth alone, women commonly suffer more pain, illness and misery than any war hero ever does. An what's her reward for enduring all that pain? She gets pushed aside when she's disfigured by birth, her children soon leave, hear beauty is gone. Women, who struggle and suffer pain to ensure the continuation of the human race, make much tougher and more courageous soldiers than all those big-mouthed freedom-fighting heroes put together.
I must work, so as not to be a fool, to get on, to become a journalist, because that's what I want!... I can't imagine that I would have to lead the same sort of life as Mummyand all the women who do their work and are then forgotten. I must have something besides a husband and children, something that I can devote myself to!
Everyone thinks I'm showing off when I talk, ridiculous when I'm silent, insolent when I answer, cunning when I have a good idea, lazy when I'm tired, selfish when I eat one bite more than I should.
I think it's odd that grown-ups quarrel so easily and so often and about such petty matters. Up to now I always thought bickering was just something children did and that they outgrew it.
Then I fall asleep with a stupid feeling of wishing to be different from what I am or from what I want to be; perhaps to behave differently from the way I want to behave or do behave.
There's in people simply an urge to destroy, an urge to kill, to murder and rage, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated, and grown will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again