Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.
If it's to be, it's up to me.
We should nourish our souls on the dew of Poesy, and manure them as well.
There are people whose society I find delicious; but when I sit alone and think of them I shudder.
Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.
People before the public live an imagined life in the thought of others, and flourish or feel faint as their self outside themselves grows bright or dwindles in that mirror.