#shame

"I’m so sunburned I’m embarrassed, but you can’t tell I’m blushing because I’m sunburned. I’m so ashamed I could just lie on the beach and die."

"So often survivors have had their experiences denied, trivialized, or distorted. Writing is an important avenue for healing because it gives you the opportunity to define your own reality. You can say: This did happen to me. It was that bad. It was the fault & responsibility of the adult. I was—and am—innocent.” The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis"

"But no matter how much evil I see, I think it’s important for everyone to understand that there is much more light than darkness."

"I look in the mirror through the eyes of the child that was me."

"Temporis filia veritas; cui me obstetricari non pudet.Truth is the daughter of time, and I feel no shame in being her midwife."

"You were never created to live depressed, defeated, guilty, condemned, ashamed or unworthy. We were created to be victorious."

"A man must not be without shame, for the shame of being without shame is shamelessness indeed."

"Pepperonis are like edible polkadots. I made you a pizza dress, but I’m ashamed to admit I burned it. I’m afraid you’ll have to dance naked."

"It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me."

"Look: the trees exist; the houseswe dwell in stand there stalwartly. Only wepass by it all, like a rush of air.And everything conspires to keep quiet about us,half out of shame perhaps, half out of some secret hope."

"I like writing letters and receiving letters. It's a shame that we've lost the art of letter-writing and saving correspondence. I mourn that."

"Easily mistaken, it is not about a love for adversity, it is about knowing a strength and a faith so great that adversity, in all its adverse manifestations, hardly even exists."

"You will never find the real truth among people that are insecure or have egos to protect. Truth over time becomes either guarded or twisted as their perspective changes; it changes with the seasons of their shame, love, hope or pride."

"We do not have to be ashamed of what we are. As sentient beings we have wonderful backgrounds. These backgrounds may not be particularly enlightened or peaceful or intelligent. Nevertheless, we have soil good enough to cultivate; we can plant anything in it."

"If a woman sleeps alone it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart, but there is one sin He will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go."

"What God says is best, indeed is best, though all men in the world are against it. Seeing, then, that God prefers his religion; seeing God prefers a tender conscience; seeing they that make themselves fools for the kingdom of heaven are wisest; and that the poor man that loveth Christ is richer than the greatest man in the world that hates him: Shame, depart, thou art an enemy to my salvation."

"The mistake ninety-nine percent of humanity made, as far as Fats could see, was being ashamed of what they were; lying about it, trying to be somebody else."

"Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle."