“It is, after all, not necessary to fly right into the middle of the sun, but it is necessary to crawl to a clean little spot on Earth where the sun sometimes shines and one can warm oneself a little.”
If you sum up your judgment of me, the result you get is that, although you don't charge me with anything downright
improper or wicked , you do charge me with coldness,
estrangements and ingratitude.
You can treat a child only in the way you yourself are constituted, with vigor, noise, and hot
temper, and in this case such behavior seemed to you to be also most appropriate because you wanted to bring me up to
be a strong, brave boy.
What I would have needed was a
little encouragement, a little friendliness, a little keeping open of my road, instead of which you blocked it for me, though of
course with the good intention of making me take another road.....But I was not fit for that.