Saint Etty, 18 December 1942

“We don’t want to think, we don’t want to feel, we want to forget as soon as possible.” It seems to me this is a very great danger. . . . I believe that for every event, man has a faculty that helps him deal with it. . . . If we abandon the hard facts that we are forced to face, if we give them no shelter in our heads and hearts, do not allow them to settle and change into impulses through which we can grow and from which we can draw meaning  . . . then it will not be enough.

. . .

One suddenly realizes that it is not enough to be an able politician or a talented artist. In the most extreme distress, life demands quite other things.

— Etty Hillesum, Letters from Westerbork.

Saint Etty, pray for me.