" Men should discover their past. I admit to this. It has been my profession. Only so can we learn our limitations and come in time to suffer life with compassion. Nevertheless, I now believe there are occasions when … to tamper with the past, even one’s own, is to bring [on] that slipping, sliding horror which revolves around all that is done, unalterable, and yet which abides unseen in the living mind … [and makes] us lonely beyond belief. "

― Vivian Gornick , The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative