Yesterday I heard someone say he felt the last years have been completely wasted as far as he was concerned. I have never felt like that, not even for a moment. Nor have I ever regretted my decision in the summer of 1939,* and strange as it may seem, I am convinced that my life has followed a straight and even course, at any rate so far as its outward circumstances are concerned. It has been an uninterrupted enrichment of my experience, for which I can only be thankful. If I should end my days here like this, that would have a meaning I could understand. On the other hand my time here may be a thorough preparation for a fresh start, for a new job of work when peace comes again… 

 From Letters and Papers From Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, April 11th 1944.
*Bonhoeffer’s decision to return from the US to Germany.