All is egotism. The only people whose mainspring is not egotism are the dead and perhaps idiots.
Miles FranklinOur greatest heart-treasure is a knowledge that there is in creation an individual to whom our existence is necessary - some one who is part of our life as we are part of theirs, some one in whose life we feel assured our death would leave a gap for a day or two.
Miles FranklinOnly a very small percentage can regard conditions from any but a selfish point of view or conceive of any but their own shoe-pinch.
Miles FranklinIf the souls of lives were voiced in music, there are some that none but a great organ could express, others the clash of a full orchestra, a few to which nought but the refined and exquisite sadness of a violin could do justice. Many might be likened unto common pianos, jangling and out of tune, and some to the feeble piping of a penny whistle, and mine could be told with a couple of nails in a rusty tin-pot.
Miles Franklin