Eloquent Justification

"Don't you ever get tired of it?" asked Vanya. "I started keeping a diary several times but always dropped it. And when I read it over I was always ashamed of what I had put down."

"Oh, no," said Roman Bodganovich. "If you do it thoroughly and regularly you get a good feeling, a feeling of self-preservation, so to speak--you preserve your entire life, and, in later years, rereading it, you may find it not devoid of fascination . . . And one day when Roman Bodganovich is very old, Roman Bodganovich will sit down at his desk and start rereading his life. That's who I'm writing for--for the future old man with the Santa-Claus beard. And if I find that my life has been rich and worth while, then I shall leave this memoir as a lesson for posterity."

"And if it is all nonsense?" asked Vanya.

"What is nonsense to one may have sense for another," replied Roman Bodganovich rather sourly.

-- Vladimir Nabokov, The Eye