I studied the man as he spoke; for all those years I’d handed my ugliness over to people and seen only the different ways it was reflected back to me. As reluctant as I was to admit it now, the only indication in my companion’s behavior was positive.

-Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a Face, p. 222

A pretty good principle: When you see bad in others, be careful that you’re not just seeing your own badness reflected back to you. We tend to lash out at our own sins when we see them in others, while at the same time failing to see them in ourselves. This is the old splinter/log principle.

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