The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs.

Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.

Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for nothing in that very well-lit back alley where one keeps assignation with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. One shuffles flashily but in vain through one's marked cards- the kindness done for the wrong reason, the apparent triumph which involved no real effort, the seemingly heroic act into which one had been shamed.

To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything.

Self-respect is a question of recognizing that anything worth having has a price.

I don't lead a writer's life. And I think that can be a source of suspicion and irritation to some people.