“Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power.” (Clint Eastwood) One main reason why Mariah, Anna, and Emma all have low self respect is because they lie to important people that deserve the truth. Lies erode the self respect of Mariah, Anna and Emma, in Dana Reinhardt’s Harmless. Firstly, in Dana Reinhardt's Harmless, lies erode Mariah's self respect. “(..)Prison cell is home, [.]Four walls. A roof. A bed. Three meals a day. (... .)” (Reinhardt 144) This quotation reveals that Mariah is lying about David Allen being better off in jail; which is covering her guilt about David Allen going to jail. Moreover, Mariah lying to her friends ultimately erodes her self respect. In the text it says, “The ghost (...) returned to haunt me.”(Reinhardt…show more content… Emma replies “You know.. A black hole. A void. A vacuum.” Emma is lying to herself by letting herself think she didn’t have intercourse with Owen. By shoving all her feelings aside, Emma is putting herself in a terrible state of mind and is now very depressed. Additionally, lying to her friends ultimately erodes her self respect. This is proven when Emma says “I’m fine. Just fine” and this indicates that Emma is very depressed, and has lost her mind. She is very scared that the police will find out, so Emma doesn't believe in the lie as well. Also, she is losing her-self esteem because she wants Owen to call her but she is afraid he moved on. Moreover,Emma lying to her parents ultimately erodes her self respect. This is emphasized when Emma “We kept our lies as vague as possible.” this demonstrates that by being afraid and nervous she loses all of her self-confidence, because she is very stressed about making the wrong decisions. By not being very confident in herself she no longer believes in herself. All in all, Emma's lies slowly erode her self