You don't want to repeat yourself for one. You don't want to fall into the clichรฉs for another. And you don't want to be licentious really. You want to be descriptive, if you can be. And you're not setting out to arouse anybody.
Philip RothHe is not simply looking into the mirror because he is transfixed by what he sees. Rather, the artistโs success depends as much as anything on his powers of detachment, on de-narcissizing himselfโฆ Freudโฆ studied his own dreams not because he was a โnarcissist,โ but because he was a student of dreams. And whose were at once the least and most accessible of dreams, if not his own?
Philip Roth