"Question. Why am I keeping this diary? Answer. Because it is part of the insane desire to perpetuate oneself. Because there seems to be a lot of things I want to say that other writers put into novels and accepted essayists into essays. Because it will be a relief to set down just what I do actually think, and in the first words to hand, instead of pondering what I ought to think and worrying about the words in which to express the hammered-out thought. But I cannot and never could invent a story, or be bothered to tell it, and have already published five books of essays, not having to do with the theater, that have been complete and utter failures. So I am driven to this last ditch of expression."

--James Agate June 3, 1932 in Ego