I'm sentimental — I know. I'm desperate and silly — I know that too. Oh, help me! - Anne Frank

It is the silence that frightens me so in the evenings and at night...I can't tell you how oppressive it is never to be able to go outdoors, also I am very afraid that we will be discovered and be shot.

It's an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary; not only because I have never done so before, but because it seems to me that neither I - nor for that matter anyone else - will be interested in the unbosomings of a thirteen-year-old school girl.

There's only one rule you need to remember: laugh at everything and forget everybody else! It sounds egotistical, but it's actually the only cure for those suffering from self-pity.