Why wont they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, cant they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping—rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year’s and Easter and Christmas—But, goodness, why need they do it?
John Dos Passos
John Dos Passos (1896–1970), U.S. novelist, poet, playwright, painter. Diary entry, December 31, 1917. The Fourteenth Chronicle: Letters and Diaries of John Dos Passos, ed. Townsend Ludington (1973).
Written at 12:30 p.m. in Italy while Dos Passos served in the American Red Cross Ambulance Service during the First World War.