That notoriously uncomfortable bed

1) From “On Self Respect,” by Joan Didion (1961)

"To do without self-respect, on the other hand, is to be an unwilling audience of one to an interminable documentary that deals one’s failings, both real and imagined, with fresh footage spliced in for every screening. There’s the glass you broke in anger, there’s the hurt on X’s face; watch now, this next scene, the night Y came back from Houston, see how you muff this one. To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, the Phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commissions and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice, or carelessness. However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves."


2) From “Anything You Want,” by Spoon (2001)



You're at your best you got the guns turned a hundred eighty degrees
and finding out if it adds all up right.
We go through all the same lines or sell out to appease,
but go to sleep in a bed of lies.
I made my own more than once or twice.