“I know that I have died before—once in November.”

Padraic My Prince
Letting Off the Happiness (1998)

1910s, My November Guest (1915)

For Once In My Life
Song lyrics

"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936), p. 14
Context: The significance of a myth is not easily to be pinned on paper by analytical reasoning. It is at its best when it is presented by a poet who feels rather than makes explicit what his theme portends; who presents it incarnate in the world of history and geography, as our poet has done. Its defender is thus at a disadvantage: unless he is careful, and speaks in parables, he will kill what he is studying by vivisection, and he will be left with a formal or mechanical allegory, and what is more, probably with one that will not work. For myth is alive at once and in all its parts, and dies before it can be dissected.

Source: The World According to Garp

Source: You Can't Go Home Again

Preface
Alone (1938)
Context: This book is the account of a personal experience — so personal that for four years I could not bring myself to write it. It is different from anything else I have ever written. My other books have been factual, impersonal narratives of my expeditions and flights. This book, on the other hand, is the story of an experience which was in considerable part subjective. I very nearly died before it was over.

Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), I
Context: I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared.
And it was after that that I found out the truth. I learnt the truth last November — on the third of November, to be precise — and I remember every instant since.

Source: My Name Is Memory