“What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?”

“It shocks me how I wish for… what is lost and cannot come back.”

“I had dated a woman briefly in the Eisenhower administration, and it was ironic to me, because I was trying to do to her what Eisenhower had been doing to the country for the last 8 years.”

“For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. For I do not understand what I am doing. For I do not practice what I wish, but I do what I hate. However, if I do what I do not wish, I agree that the Law is fine. But now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that resides in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, there dwells nothing good; for I have the desire to do what is fine but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good that I wish, but the bad that I do not wish is what I practice. If, then, I do what I do not wish, I am no longer the one carrying it out, but it is the sin dwelling in me.”

“I had to decide what I was going to do, and what I was going to be.
I was standing there, waiting for someone to do something, till I realised the person I was waiting for was myself.”

“Suddenly, I viddied what I had to do, and what I had wanted to do, and that was to do myself in; to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked, cruel world. One moment of pain perhaps and, then, sleep forever, and ever and ever.”

“The pain of not knowing what to do was exceeded only by that of knowing what I had done.”

“I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live - if what others are doing is called living - but to express myself.”

“Young soldiers had a lot of expectations and fantasies about how it would be and what they would do and feel. Invariably wrong, those expectations.”

“The only thing to think over was Me, of course. And the real problem about Me was, What was I supposed to do? Was I meant to be nothing but God? I had tried the God business and found it too limited. It was a job for a simple-minded egomaniac. There had to be something else for me to do—something more meaningful, more expressive of my true self. I’m convinced of it! That is my problem, and that is the question I ask of you: What am I to do with myself?”