““It’s 11:15 p. m. Most people are asleep and I’m just finishing my last exercise with my 30-pound vest. I sit on the bench to have some rest. I look at myself in the mirror. After a while, I ask myself a question: “Is it really still worth it?” Unfortunately, I don’t think I can answer this question. I really can’t. I keep thinking,

“You are alone, no family, you work like a horse, there is no one waiting for you at home.” This doesn’t sound too great, I think. But then another question pops up: “Then why do you keep doing it?” I know the answer to this question without hesitation. “Because I love it.””

Il y avait un nombre important de questions que je m'étais posées et, comme vous le savez, lorsqu'on se pose vraiment les questions, on donne de meilleures réponses que si l'on se contente de lire les réponses convenues.
explaining how he came to write his textbook on quantum mechanics, in Descente au coeur de la matière, an interview edited by [Stéphane Deligeorges, Le monde quantique, Editions du Seuil, Sciences et Avenir, 1984, 2020089084, 111]

From interview with Anshul Chaturvedi

The Den Of Geek interview: Brad Dourif http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/13555/the-den-of-geek-interview-brad-dourif (August 18, 2008)

2000s, 2009

Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 1.
Context: All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.

On wearing leotards and fishnet stockings in his early performances.
Rolling Stone interview (2003)
Context: I wore that because it makes me look beautiful. I stare at myself in the mirror and I think, "Wow, I'm really great-looking."... I think I'm the greatest, anyway.

Sam Slick's wise saws and modern instances: or, What he said, did, or invented, Volumen 1 https://archive.org/details/samslickswisesaw00haliuoft (1853), p. 185, Hurst and Blackett.