I think that I will go through a big change when I can withdraw from people and be myself again. I can’t explain why or how, but I feel as if I’ve lost something among people that I could see, understand, and feel when I was alone. The more I live among city people, the more I realize the tremendously important role that the peace and the stillness of nature play in our development. Something is lost when you live too much among other people, the way you do in a city. The ideas and thoughts of others penetrate you, and you get so caught up in them that you are no longer able to feel or understand what is taking place in your own life.
–Kim Malthe-Bruun, in his journal