“If you want self-esteem.” “Do estimable acts” ~ V, from A Piece of Cake: Memoir”

“But there were certain moments in life that forever defined one as a person - in one's own estimation, anyway. And one's own self esteem, when all was said and done, was of far more importance than the fickle esteem of one's peers.”

“I hate gossips. I really do. I often wonder where they get the time and effort they put into either digging or fabricating so called *facts* about others. But these ridiculous creatures are a prime example of how the self-communal can try to injure and diminish the self-that-is. Now you know where the home of the self esteem is. It is not merely within the self. It is within the self-that-is. It is not within the self in relation. This can never hold true. Any sense of self estimation you get from the communal can never hold essentially true.”

“The best way to achieve self-esteem is to do something worthy of esteem.”

“Go try your charming act on some tramp with low self-esteem, because I'm not falling for it.”

“Memoir is not an act of history but an act of memory, which is innately corrupt.”