Portnoy's complaint

"...and began to lecture me on my shortcomings as she had observed them all that day.
'The way you disapprove of your life! Why do you do that? It is of no value for a man to disapprove of his life the way you do. You seem to take some special pleasure, some pride, in making yourself the butt of your own peculiar sense of humor. I don't believe you actually want to improve your life. Everything you say is somehow always twisted, some way or another, to come out 'funny'. All day long the same thing. In some little way or other, everything is ironical, or self-deprecating. And you are a highly intelligent man. That is what makes it even more disagreeable. The contribution you could make! Such stupid self-deprecation! How disagreeable!' "

Philip Roth, Portnoy's complaint, 1967