"But the I who writes is just as much a character in the story as the other persons with whom it is concerned. He may be the hero or he may be an onlooker or a confidant. But he is a character. The writer who uses this device is writing fiction, and if he makes the I of his story a little quicker on the uptake, a little more level-headed, a l;ittle shrewder, a little braver, a little wiser than he, the writer, really is, the reader must show indulgence. He must remember that the author is not draweing a faithful portrait of himself, but creating a character for the particular purposes of his story."
— from the Preface, The Collected Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham