Sometimes, from desperate imaginations, the silence provoked roaring hallucinations, fantastic rationalizations, or self-serving excuses for any crime the strong might choose to commit against the weak.

"That sounds like a self-serving excuse to me," he said.

It was a vain, self-serving excuse, I told myself.

Or perhaps fall back on her customary litany of self-serving excuses and rationalizations.

She was a no-nonsense professional with a sardonic wit that conveyed her dislike of cant, which she saw through swiftly, and self-serving excuses - which she would not tolerate.

"Am I hearing the self-serving excuses of a man anticipating failure?"

I'm sick of listening to their self-serving excuses which the jounalists shoot down in flames in less time than it takes me to read the original story.

Their unnecessary use is an example of killing for the "sport" of it, a cruel form of "acting out" no matter what self-serving excuses are offered.

The elections are over, and politicians no longer have even self-serving excuses for delay.

Mr. Lieberman has constructed a tortured and self-serving excuse for depriving Connecticut voters of a Democratic Senate nominee who would be guaranteed to serve if elected to that office.