Leonid Utesov. Through Life with a Song

I once wrote my first book. I was forty years old then. A mature age, in general, but now I see that I was just a boy... I endured a lot of reproaches. I was terribly upset. But I still couldn’t calmly say to myself - "serves me right" - and take a philosophical approach to everything. Twenty years later, my second book was published. Then I was already twenty years older, and I was sure that I understood everything, figured it all out, lived through it all and could look at the thing impartially... But this time too, I did not achieve what I wanted. Impartiality is not for an actor. Now I am fifteen years older again and I have written a third book. In it, I tried to correct the mistakes, blunders and inaccuracies of the first two and look with different eyes at my actions, my deeds, my dreams and their realization. And what I did not pay attention to in the first two seemed especially important and dear to me now. Although a person only has one life and can't live it again—that's where there's truly nothing to add or subtract—I managed to live mine three times, and it simply couldn't remain unchanged. When I'm a hundred years old and write a fourth book, much in it will probably look different again...