People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called *character,* a quality which, although… - Joan Didion

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

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

The wind shows us how close to the edge we are

"I promised myself that I would maintain momentum.
"Maintain momentum" was the imperative that echoed all the way downtown.
In fact I had no idea what would happen if I lost it.
In fact I had no idea what it was."

"Flying to Monterey I had a sharp apprehension of the many times before when I had, like Lincoln Steffens, "come back," flown west, followed the sun, each time experiencing a lightening of spirit as the land below opened up, the checkerboards of the midwestern plains giving way to the vast empty reach between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada; then home, there, where I was from, me, California. It would be a while before I realized that “me” is what we think when our parents die, even at my age, who will look out for me now, who will remember me as I was, who will know what happens to me now, where will I be from."