“… and this made me also ambitious to leave some monument of myself behind me, that I might not be the only man exempted from this liberty of lying: and because I had no matter of verity to employ my pen in (for nothing hath befallen me worth the writing), I turned my style to publish untruths, but with an honester mind than others have done: for this one thing I confidently pronounce for a truth, that I lie: and this, I hope, may be an excuse for all the rest, when I confess what I am faulty in: for I write of matters which I neither saw nor suffered, nor heard by report from others, which are in no being, nor possible ever to have a beginning. Let no man therefore in any case give any credit to them.”

– Lucian of Samosata, Lucian’s True History, transl. Francis Hickes

“Begin all over again? It would be no good. It would all turn out the same—all happen again just as it has happened. For certain people are bound to go astray because for them no such thing as a right way exists.”

– Thomas Mann, Death in Venice, transl. David Luke

“It is hardly my fault if his lordship’s life and work have turned out today to look, at best, a sad waste—and it is quite illogical that I should feel any regret or shame on my own account.”

– Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day