Since desire always goes towards that which is our direct opposite, it forces us to love that which will make us suffer. - Anaïs Nin

The morning I got up to begin this book I coughed. Something was coming out of my throat: it was strangling me. I broke the thread which held it and yanked it out. I went back to bed and said: I have just spat out my heart.

At sixteen, Sabina took moon baths — first of all, because everyone else took sun baths, and second, she admitted, because she had been told it was dangerous.

I only regret that everybody wants to deprive me of the journal, which is the only steadfast friend I have, the only one which makes my life bearable, because my happiness with human beings is so precarious, my confiding moods rare, and the least sign of non-interest is enough to silence me. In the journal I am at ease.