Human, All Too Human, Part II

One should only speak where one cannot remain silent, and only speak of what one has conquered-the rest is all chatter, "literature," bad breeding. My writings speak only of my conquests, "I" am in them, with all that is hostile to me, ego ipsissimus, or, if a more haughty expression be permitted, ego ipsissimum. It may be guessed that I have many below me.... But first I always needed time, convalescence, distance, separation, before I felt the stirrings of a desire to flay, despoil, lay bare, "represent" (or whatever one likes to call it) for the additional knowledge of the world, something that I had lived through and outlived, something done or suffered. Hence all my writings, -with one exception, important, it is true, -must be ante-dated-they always tell of a "behind-me