“If I’d been able to kill myself and afterward see their faces, then yes, it would have been worth it. People aren’t convinced of your sincerity, your motives, and the depth of your sorrows except by your death. As you long as you are alive, your case is uncertain, and you are entitled only to their skepticism. So if one were sure to enjoy the spectacle, it would be worth it to prove to them what they don’t wish to believe, and to astonish them.
But you kill yourself and what does it matter whether they believe you or not: you aren’t there to drink in their amazement and their contrition (so fleeting, moreover), to attend, as every man dreams, your own funeral.”
Albert Camus, The Fall (1956)