Clean your finger before you point at my spots. – Benjamin Franklin
I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first. – Benjamin Franklin
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. – Benjamin Franklin
He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. – Benjamin Franklin
Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship,” Essays, 1841
And I know Im supposed to feel guilty for wanting people to buy my books… and books in general? Novels and poetry, they belong to the realm of art. How dirty of us to try to hawk art! But, after a decade of hand-wringing and apologies, I cant quite muster the guilt anymore. – Julianna Baggott