"I am made of sterner stuff" The above sentence is not a part of a text book chapter, or a novel or an auto biography or biography or a newspaper/news magazine/newchannel article/video clip or an English/Hindi/Telugu movie. To say the least the above is a not description of myself and it is not part of my vocabulary. "When I came across" The first and last time I saw the above was when one of my friends wrote the above in the body of communication he has written to one of his associates. Since my friend showed me his communication, I saw the same. I don’t remember the other part of the communication, but I remember the tone and context of the same. It was in the hand-written form as friend’s callisthenic skills are of higher order and he was/is not computer-savy. This was about 22 years ago. I did not check the dictionary at that point of time. But the combination of sterner and stuff and its rhyming sort of thing got registered in my mind, needless to say, made an indelible impression. So this raises the question about me. "So how would I describe of myself?" In my opinion it is very difficult to capture any one’s personality in one or two words. Contexts throw up symptoms of personality. But if you further insist, I would describe myself in the following way. "I am malleable and ductile" As you are quite aware of metals and metallic properties, the quite flexible metals are said to be malleable and ductile. Some examples are Aluminum, Tungsten etc. They can be easily given a shape with minimum force and no need for metallurgical process. Sounds funny? Latest update about this: Understand that my friend first read the "sterner stuff" part in Williams Shakspere's epic drama Julius Caesar first! Thanks to him for correcting me! When I told him of this FB post, he laughed it off!