twenty-seven years and one million words
I was doing some maintenance on my website today and came across the text of the first funeral speech I ever gave.
It's for my grandfather and is now just turned eleven years old. Looking back, I think it holds up pretty well. A nasty job, writing a funeral speech.
The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself.
—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov