For this is the journey that men make: to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't matter much what else they find: Money, position, fame, many loves, revenge are all of little consequence, and when the tickets are collected at the end of the ride they are tossed into the bin marked FAILURE. But if a man happens to find himself... then he has found a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.

The Fires of Spring: A Novel (1949)