I don't mind arguing with myself. It's when I lose that it bothers me.
I have just as many liberal ideas as I have conservative ideas that I argue with myself sometimes.
Poetry is a man arguing with himself; rhetoric is a man arguing with others.
A man may quarrel with himself alone; that is, by controverting his better instincts and knowledge when brought face to face with temptation.
The tension between 'yes' and 'no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot', makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.
One of the things that happens in novels it's almost like a continual debate with yourself. That's why you're writing the book. It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.
The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.
Lincoln had no such person that he could talk with. Often, as a result, he debated with himself, and he would draw up a kind of list of the pros and cons of an argument, and carefully figure them out, and he might test them in public.
