It was only, in the natural history of the mind, the bright feathers that drew the species to mate with its secret self.

I guess my secret self always wanted to be a wizard in a medieval world.

Most of her life she'd associated power with politics or money, but her secret self had learned better.

It deterred them from being too critical of me and protected my secret self.

They remind us that her secret self was never a secret in the first place.

I would have liked you to have a secret self, visible only to me.

It was Luc as she, in her secret self, had always imagined he would be.

He was not what he'd dreamed he'd be, or promised his secret self.

Or maybe it is the artist's own secret self returning from psychic exile.

And she had just herself to worry about; he was privy to everyone's secret selves.