Be gentle to all and stern with yourself.
The dog that trots about finds a bone.
To know oneself, one should assert oneself.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
After a storm comes a calm.
Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.
Only the educated are free.
Leap, and the net will appear.
If you think you can do it, you can.
Well done is better than well said.
Perhaps, all writers walk such a line. In general - as we all do in our dreams - I believe I put something of myself into all the characters in my novels, male as well as female.