Do not whine... Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone. - Joan Didion

Madness, it became convenient to believe quite early on, came with the territory, on the order of earthquakes.

unaccustomed to the ambushes of family life, and perhaps it is just as well that I can offer her little of that life. I would like to give her more. I would like to promise her that she will grow up with a sense of her cousins and of rivers and of her great-grandmother’s teacups, would like to pledge her a picnic on a river with fried chicken and her hair uncombed, would like to give her home for her birthday, but we live differently now and I can promise her nothing like that. I give her a xylophone and a sundress from Madeira, and promise to tell her a funny story.

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves — there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.