The Diary of a Young Girl | Quotes

Anne Frank addresses her diary directly, as if it is not an inanimate object, but the live flesh-and-blood friend she so desperately wishes to have. Her plea to her diary also shows her intense desire to express herself freely and fully and to be understood, a desire that remains a driving force for Anne throughout the diary.

When the last member of the household, Mr. Dussel, arrives in the Secret Annex, he brings dreadful news of the outside world. Dozens of the Franks' friends have been arrested and sent to concentration camps. Though Anne Frank has heard about such things before, Mr. Dussel's account makes it much more real. Anne is suddenly awash with guilt. It's annoying to live in hiding, but the Jews outside are "at the mercy of the cruelest monsters ever to stalk the earth."

The radio in the Secret Annex is almost literally a lifesaver. Listening to war news every night brings the residents together as nothing else can, and the news itself is a priceless link to the outside world. Unfortunately, Anne Frank knows when she writes this sentence that the Secret Annex will soon be deprived of even this comfort: the Nazis have ordered all Dutch citizens to surrender their radios.

Hanneli is a former classmate and one of Anne's best friends. Anne hasn't thought about her in months, but the dream reveals, with painful clarity, that on a subconscious level Anne is processing the horror of what must be happening to most of her friends.

There's an unspoken code of manners in the Secret Annex: try to stay cheerful for the sake of the others. Although she's the youngest person there, Anne Frank takes this task very seriously. She knows that if everyone in the Annex were to give way to negativity, life would become even harder. But as she notes in the same entry, "Feelings can't be ignored." With no chance for expression, her negative feelings become even harder to ignore.

Eight helpers, most of them former employees of Anne Frank's father, work around the clock to keep the residents of the Secret Annex safe and comfortable. Over time, the helpers come to seem like an extended family (sometimes they're even invited to spend the night), and Anne is keenly aware that without them, she and the others would have been sent to concentration camps.

The spring of 1944 sees a leap in Anne Frank's self-awareness as well as her self-confidence. How will she leave her mark on the world? How would she like to be remembered? More and more, she's coming to realize that her writing forms the best path to the kind of adult she wants to become.

Of the residents in the Secret Annex, Peter van Daan is closest in age to Anne Frank, and their final months in the Secret Annex are made much happier as they begin to fall in love. Anne throws herself into the romance with characteristic energy, recounting every detail of even the shortest encounter with Peter. She'll fall out of love as fast as she fell into it, but at this point in the diary, she's still in the throes of infatuation. Her question is also a reminder that, despite her unusual circumstances in the Annex, she still enjoys traditional milestones of adolescence, such as a first kiss.

Because of the success of D-Day, when British, American, and Canadian troops successfully invaded France, the residents of the Annex have renewed hope that their liberation may become a reality. D-Day was indeed an important step toward the defeat of the Germans. Throughout her time in hiding, Anne Frank demonstrates an amazing spiritual and emotional resilience in the face of terrifying circumstances. But the miserable conditions in the Annex, including an alarming lack of food, have nearly driven even her to despair, so the news of D-Day is particularly heartening. Sadly, within two months, the Gestapo (German Secret State Police) will discover and arrest the residents of the Annex.

This poignant statement is perhaps the most famous sentence in the diary. Despite everything she experienced, Anne Frank never lost faith in humanity.