Collection 5: "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank

I’m seething with rage, yet I can’t show it.

I couldn’t bear their sympathy or their good-humored derision.

Everyone thinks I’m showing off when I talk, ridiculous when I’m silent, insolent when I answer, cunning when I have a good idea, lazy when I’m tired, selfish when I eat one bit more than I should, stupid, cowardly, calculating, etc., etc.

All day long I hear nothing but what an exasperating child I am, and although I laugh it off and pretend not to mind, I do mind.

I wish I could ask God to give me another personality, one that doesn’t antagonize everyone.

More than once, after a series of absurd reproaches, I’ve snapped at Mother: “I don’t care what you say. Why don’t you just wash your hands of me—I’m a hopeless case.”

Perhaps sometime I’ll treat the others with the same contempt as they treat me.

In the beginning Mr. Dussel took our soon-forgotten clashes very seriously, but now he’s grown used to them and no longer tries to mediate.

I can only cry out and implore, “Oh, ring, ring, open wide and let us out!”

This splendid fountain pen came in a red leather case, and I showed it to my girlfriends the first chance I got.

“It must have melted into stone,” Father conjectured.

She may be selfish, stingy and underhanded, but she’ll readily back down as long as you don’t provoke her and make her unreasonable.

I want to take a fresh look at things and form my own opinion, not just ape my parents, as in the proverb “The apple never falls far from the tree.”

I want to take a fresh look at things and form my own opinion, not just ape my parents, as in the proverb “The apple never falls far from the tree.”

I’ll take every opportunity to speak openly to Mrs. van D. about our many differences and not be afraid—despite my reputation as a smart aleck—to offer my impartial opinion.