As I look back over the past years, reflecting on the blunders committed by my awkward self, I remember that at one time it was my ambition to become a high official with a large fief, and at another I intended to enter a Buddhist monastery and lead a life of meditation. But all the while I have lived a life of painful wanderings with wind and cloud, racking my brains over poems about flowers and birds. Since this has become my livelihood, though I am ungifted by nature and without skill, nevertheless, I have now devoted myself to this art alone.
- Matsuo Bashō