And if my poor literary work has any meaning, in the ultimate analysis, it consists of this: a time came when writing meant, for me, an absolute necessity to testify, an urgent need to free myself from an obsession, to state the meaning and define the limits of a painful but decisive break, and of a vaster allegiance that still continues. For me writing has not been, and never could be, except in a few favored moments of grace, a serene aesthetic enjoyment, but rather the painful and lonely continuation of a struggle. As for the difficulties and imperfections of self-expression with which I sometimes have to wrestle, they arise, not from lack of observation of the rules of good writing, but rather from a conscience which, while struggling to heal certain hidden and perhaps incurable wounds, continues obstinately to demand that its integrity be respected.
Ignazio Silone in The God That Failed, 72.