There was a level on which I believed that what had happened remained reversible - Joan Didion

People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called *character,* a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to the other, more instantly negotiable virtues.... character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.

Alcohol has its own well-know defects as a medication for depression but no one has ever suggested - ask any doctor - that it is not the most effective anti-anxiety agent yet known.

The ability to think for one's self depends upon one's mastery of the language.