Strictly self-critical ...

... The Letters of Samuel Beckett Volume II - review | Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In 1948, from Dublin, where he was staying with his mother, he writes: "The weather is fine, I walk along my old paths, I keep watching my mother's eyes, never so blue, so stupefied, so heartrending, eyes of an endless childhood, that of old age. Let us get there rather earlier, while there are still refusals we can make. I think these are the first eyes that I have seen. I have no wish to see any others. I have all I need for loving and weeping. I know now what is going to close, and open inside me, but without seeing anything, there is no more seeing."