“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”

“It's true--I can see it now--we are made of where we've come from, molded by landscape, weather, harbors, hunger, and war, as much as by individual ancestors. The experience of the place--its struggles, strife, and horrors--accrues, even if we haven't personally experienced it. We are, still, its inevitable consequence.”

“It baffles me that people think that obliterating the past will save them from its consequences, as if throwing away the empty cake plate would help you lose weight.”

“For now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose. The habit of entering accurately must help sooth me.”

“We were caught in a vicious circle of unpleasantness and sorrow. Not a very happy period for either us, but at leasst it's coming to an end.”

“[T]he scale of a man's evil is not entirely to be measured by its practical consequences. Men commit evil within the scope available to them.”