Quotes & Sayings About Shame On Me

I'm a hedonist, and you, Jane, my wife, should know that about me. You've shared my body and bed, you know things about me that no other soul on earth does. Who can I not be a sensualist with than, you, Jane? Who else to act out my wicked fantasies, than the woman who inspires them? There is no shame in fantasies, in pleasure. Who other than us needs to know what we've done, what brings the other pleasure? — Charlotte Featherstone

You gotta find a life outside this office," he threw out a hand then pinned his eyes on me. "You gotta find a man."
My back snapped straight. "Tack, really - "
He didn't miss my response. He just misinterpreted it.
"Don't go woman on me and tell me you don't need a man to complete you. It's bullshit. Woman looks like you, goddamn waste. But a woman who has the love you got to give, that's not a waste. That's a crying shame."
I closed my mouth because that was sweet.
Then I opened it to remind him, "Uh, FYI, I can't go woman on you since I am a woman, so going woman is redundant. — Kristen Ashley

Don't make the extremely foolish mistake of thinking that winning is everything. If there is one person that I would really like to smack, it is the person who said, "Winning is not the main thing. It's the only thing." That's awful. Taking part is the main thing. Doing your best is the main thing. There is no shame in not winning. The shame is in not trying to win, which is of course another matter altogether. Above all, be gracious in defeat. Believe me, you'll get plenty of chances to put this into practice, so you might as well
start working on it now. — Bill Bryson

Anger - and a small measure of shame about what she'd heard - speared down my spine, causing me to sit up straight. "You rudely eavesdropped on my appointment at the bank, googled me, and now you think you understand my situation?" What the fuck? — Mia Sheridan

I thought, I want to die. I want to die more than ever before. There's no chance now of a recovery. No matter what sort of thing I do, no matter what I do, it's sure to be a failure, just a final coating applied to my shame. That dream of going on bicycles to see a waterfall framed in summer leaves - it was not for the likes of me. All that can happen now is that one foul, humiliating sin will be piled on another, and my sufferings will become only the more acute. I want to die. I must die. Living itself is the source of sin. — Osamu Dazai

No 'Middlemarch' for me," said Miss Barbara, with a wave of her hand. "I am too old for that. That means I've read it, my dear - the way an experienced reader like me can read a thing - in the air, in the newspapers, in the way everybody talks. No, that's not like going into a new neighborhood - that is getting to the secrets of the machinery, and seeing how everything, come the time, will run down, some to ill and harm, but all to downfall, commonplace, and prosiness. I have but little pleasure in that. And it's pleasure I want at my time of life. I'm too old to be instructed. If I have not learned my lesson by this time, the more shame to me, my dear." "But, Miss Barbara, you don't want only to be amused. Oh no: to have your heart touched, sometimes wrung even - to be so sorry, so anxious that you would like to interfere - to follow on and on to the last moment through all their troubles, still hoping that things will take a good turn." — Mrs. Oliphant

I have these secret pangs of shame about being single, like I wasn't good enough to get a husband. Rita reminded me of something I'd told her once, about the five rules of the world as arrived at by this Catholic priest named Tom Weston. The first rule, he says, is that you must not have anything wrong with you or anything different. The second one is that if you do have something wrong with you, you must get over it as soon as possible. The third rule is that if you can't get over it, you must pretend that you have. The fourth rule is that if you can't even pretend that you have, you shouldn't show up. You should stay home, because it's hard for everyone else to have you around. And the fifth rule is that if you are going to insist on showing up, you should at least have the decency to feel ashamed.
So Rita and I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed. — Anne Lamott

For I am no orator. What would I have said if they had let me go on? That it is worse to beat a man's feet to pulp than to kill him in combat? That it brings shame on everyone when a girl is permitted to flog a man? That spectacles of cruelty corrupt the hearts of the innocent? — J.M. Coetzee

I stand, walk over to him, sit down on his bed, put my arms around him, hug him. He hugs me back strong and I can feel the shame coming through his arms. I am a Criminal and he is a Judge and I am white and he is black, but at this moment none of that matters. He is a man who needs a friends and I can be his friend. — James Frey

So here he sits one drunk nigger in a puclic libary after closing, with the book open in front of me and the bottle of Old Kentucky on my left. 'Tell the truth and shame the devil,' my mom used to say , but she forgot to tell me that sometimes you can't shame Mr Splitfoot sober. The Irish know, but of course they're God's white niggers and who knows maybe they're a step ahead. — Stephen King

So I let my shame own me, kill me, wilt me away into a thousand dead flakes, knowing if I kept it all in, she would never have to learn the dirtiness that was forever inside me
the bad, the ugly, the twisted. She could go on living her life happy, just like she deserved. — Jessica Sorensen

A Book I Can Put Down

I'm halfway through
and I've gotten used
to the way it wants
to be read. This writer
wants to spoon it up,
wants to watch me
swallow it. This writer
makes a point of good
deeds, clean living,
god and country,
when what I want
is sin and shame,
the rusty metal edge
of cruelty, varieties
of pain, his mother
still crying years later,
just like mine. I want
a writer who's given up
on the moral of the story,
one who'll hand me
a knife and sit back
to see what I do with it.

(Published in Anderbo) — Antonia Clark

If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
Far or forgot to me is near,
Shadow and sunlight are the same,
The vanished gods to me appear,
And one to me are shame and fame.
They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fool me once; fool me twice; but shame on me if you fool me thrice. — Nabil N. Jamal

Stupid cupid you're a real mean guy, I'd like to pick your wings so you can't fly, I am in love and it's a crying shame, and I know that you're the one to blame, hey, hey set me free, stupid cupid, stop picking on me. — Mandy Moore

I came out alone on my way to my tryst. But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?

I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not.

He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger; he adds his loud voice to every word that I utter.

He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame; but I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company. — Rabindranath Tagore

Shame on you. Don't tell me you've been married for an hour and you've already got eyes for another woman. — Mordecai Richler

So?" she said, giving me a slow, wicked smile when we accelerated forward. " You told Will you found a woman who likes to have sex in public?"
"Not in my cab!" the cabbie yelled so loud we both jumped and then broke into laughter. He pumped the brakes, jolting us. "Not in my cab!"
"Don't worry, mate," I told him. I turned to her and murmured, "She doesn't let me fuck her in cars. Or on Tuesdays."
"She doesn't," she whispered, though she did let me kiss her again.
"Shame," I said into her mouth. "I'm good in cars. And especially good on Tuesdays. — Christina Lauren

Even as he said my most private thoughts, even as I burned with outrage and shame, I trembled at the grip still on my mind. Rhysand turned to the High Lord. "I'm curious: Why did she wonder if it would feel good to have you bite her breast the way you bit her neck?"
"Let. Her. Go." Tamlin's face was twisted with such feral rage that it struck a different, deeper chord of terror in me. — Sarah J. Maas

Some part of me ... had been waiting, since Kelp's death, for certainty that God ... was either dead or malicious. On the cot, now, in the rain-shadowed room with the medicine smells, I knew it was worse than that. They were a challenge, a dare: you must look at the horrors of the world and find a way back to faith in spite of what you saw. I had a glimpse of what the purer version of myself might be capable of: enduring the loss, keeping the rage and disgust down, finding meaning through suffering. But it was only a glimpse. There was so much shame, and the shame made me angry at the thought of getting better. — Glen Duncan

She took no pleasure from the very things I loved, from her size, her amplitude, her luscious, zaftig heft. As many times as I told her she was beautiful, I know that she never believed me. As many times as I said it didn't matter, I knew that to her it did. I was just one voice, and the world's voice was louder. I could feel her shame like a palpable thing, walking beside us on the street, crouched down between us in a movie theater, coiled up and waiting for someone to say what to her was the dirtiest word in the world: fat. — Jennifer Weiner

My mother said, "Arturo, stop that. Your sister's tired."

"Oh Holy Ghost, Oh Holy inflated triple ego, get us out of the depression. Elect Roosevelt. Keep us on the gold standard. Take France off, but for Christ's sake keep us on!"

"Arturo, stop that"

"Oh Jehovah, in your infinite mutability see if you can't scrape up some coin for the Bandini family."

My mother said, "Shame, Arturo. Shame."

I got up on the divan and yelled, "I reject the hypothesis of God! Down with the decadence of a fraudulent Christianity! Religion is the opium of the people! All that we are or ever hope to be we owe to the devil and his bootleg apples!"

My mother came after me with the broom. — John Fante

To my shame, the name he gave was not one that conjured any feeling in me: not fear, nor revulsion, nor horror at a man who carried ill-luck with him wherever he went. On that bright summer
day at the height of the world, I heard Aquila say 'Lucius Caesennius Paetus', and I shrugged and said, 'He who was consul in Rome last year? — M.C. Scott

Courage has you say in a defiant spirit you can take everything from me, you could cut me deep, you could render me in shame but you will never ever stop me from loving those who mock me, from loving those that hate me, from loving those who don't forgive me, from loving the cynics, from loving the darkness so much that I myself through my small acts of consistent unyielding love may bring on the light. — Cory Booker

A rolled-up newspaper landed on my head and then on Jim's. "None of that in my house!"
Oh my gods. The alpha of Clan Cat just got smacked with a rolled-up newspaper. "Mom!"
She pointed at me with the newspaper. "Do not shame me."
I clamped my mouth shut. When she pulled out the shame card, it was all over. — Ilona Andrews

Why do you care what happens to her? I thought we humans were vapors to you, here today and gone tomorrow."
"Caspida is . . . different. She reminds me of someone, someone I'd give my life for if I could."
"The queen?" he asks. "The one who died?"
"Roshana. My dear Ro." My voice is soft as a ripple on the water. "She once ruled the Amulens, and Caspida is her descendant. She has Roshana's strength of spirit, and I cannot look at her without thinking of my old friend. If she were to come to harm on my account . . . I could not bear that through the centuries." I already carry a mountain of shame, a constant reminder of that day on Mount Tissia.
Aladdin lifts a hand and brushes the hair back from my face. "You truly are remarkable, Zahra of the Lamp. — Jessica Khoury

Your machinery is beautiful. Your society people have apologized to me for the envious ridicule with which your newspapers have referred to me. Your newspapers are comic but never amusing. Your Water Tower is a castellated monstrosity with pepperboxes stuck all over it. I am amazed that any people could so abuse Gothic art and make a structure not like a water tower but like a tower of a medieval castle. It should be torn down. It is a shame to spend so much money on buildings with such an unsatisfactory result. Your city looks positively dreary. — Oscar Wilde

I was so ashamed for a mistake I made unknowingly when I was completely out of control and lost my mind for some reasons. I thought about to end my life next day at some point. I was struggling to cope with my pain, shame and thinking about others who I had hurt unintentionally. The worst moment came when people who I loved most had pulled out their support and threatens me to end relationships. Lesson learns hard way that people who are not with you at worst time of your life have no right to stand beside you when you are at best. Life goes on ... — Sammy Toora Powerlifter

He leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands and remained rapt in dumb meditation. On my inquiring the subject of his thoughts, he answered gravely 'I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!'
'For shame, Heathcliff!' said I. 'It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.'
'No, God won't have the satisfaction that I shall,' he returned. 'I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I'll plan it out: while I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain. — Emily Bronte

Shame resilience is the ability to say, This hurts. This is disappointing, maybe even devastating. But success and recognition and approval are not the values that drive me. My value is courage and I was just courageous. You can move on, shame. — Brene Brown

Elisandra read while I tried my hand at embroidering a pillowcase that she lent me. The results were execrable. I had no skill with a needle, and no desire to learn, either.
'I wouldn't shame a dog by laying this upon his bed,' I remarked, showing Elisandra my efforts. She actually smiled.
'I like it,' she said. 'I'll put it on one of my pillows.'
'Bryan won't let you sleep in the same bed with him if you bring this as your dowry,' I said with an attempt at humor.
She bent her head back over her book. 'Then stitch me another. — Sharon Shinn

Goose pimples rose all over me, my hair stood on end, my eyes filled with tears of love and gratitude for this greatest of all conquerors of human misery and shame, and my breath came in little gasps. If I had not known that the Leader would have scorned such adulation, I might have fallen to my knees in unashamed worship, but instead I drew myself to attention, raised my arm in the eternal salute of the ancient Roman Legions and repeated the holy words, "Heil Hitler!" — George Lincoln Rockwell

Shamed and enraged, I sit by the side of the road and cry.
Eclipsed by a sense of disgrace, my emotions feel momentarily stifled and disconnected. Instead of anger, I feel dishonored and exposed. I cannot even formulate my thoughts, much less speak them. My integrity and humility have been violated. I have only my own indignation to spur me on. — Holly A. Smith

A missing arm might ruin your symmetry. Personal asymmetry where I come from is a big taboo and brings great shame on the family and sometimes even the whole village."
"Do you then have to kill yourself over it or something?"
"Goodness me, no! The family and village just have to learn to be ashamed
and nuts to them for being so oversensitive. — Jasper Fforde

There was a blond misty boy sitting beside me, and he looked at me, and I at him, and we were not strangers: our hands moved towards each other to embrace. I never heard his voice, for we did not speak; it is a shame, I should so like the memory of it. Loneliness, like fever, thrives on night, but there with him light broke, breaking in the trees like birdsong, and when sunrise came, he loosened his fingers from mine, and walked away, that misty boy, my friend. — Truman Capote

I existed on my own terms. I was different my entire life. Some called me divergent, wild, crazy, unpredictable and unconformed - an apostate to the rules of the majority. I called myself God's creation and found purpose in the madness. When that day came, I didn't allow other people to dictate how I should feel or act. I learned there was no shame in imperfection because history had shown being different had the power to change perspectives and eventually the world. This is when I realized that flaws had responsibility. This was the day that I learned I was truly BLESSED. — Shannon L. Alder

How lovely the months, the years with him had been. At the moment I hadn't understood their importance, and now here I was, growing sad. The rain the cold the snow the scents of Spring along the Arno and on the flowering streets of the city, the warmth we gave each other. Choosing a dress, glasses. His pleasure in changing me. And Paris, the exciting trip to a foreign country, the cafes, the politics, the literature, the revolution that would soon arrive, even though the working class was becoming integrated. And him. His room at night. His body. All finished. I tossed nervously in my bed unable to sleep. I'm lying to myself , I thought. Had it really been so wonderful ? I knew very well that at that time, too, there had been shame. And uneasiness, and humiliation, and disgust: accept, submit force yourself. Is it possible that even happy moments of pleasure never stand up to rigorous examination — Elena Ferrante

If you deceive me once shame on you because I have trusted you once and you have deceived me, if you deceive me twice shame on me because I have learnt my lessons and you have deceive me and if you deceive me for the third time shame on me because am a compound fool. — Olusegun Obasanjo

Aftera brief silence, Kenzie said, "Don't you believe in second chances?"
The room seemed a little colder, a little darker, as if a shadow had passed over the sun.
"Sonny Lee always said, 'Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. — Cinda Williams Chima

Once bitten, twice shy, thrice shame on me! — Gary Patton

When we sat down on the couch again, you curled up against my side, like you used to when you were a toddler.
What I wanted to say to you, but didn't, was this: Don't use me as your model. I'm the last person you should look up to. — Jodi Picoult

Guilt and shame have, until now, kept me silent on this issue. I am old enough, even if just twenty, to know that I have no logical reason to feel either guilt or shame, that I was the victim, not the victimizer. Yet I've been so long marinated in both emotions that they will forever flavor me. — Dean Koontz

One day, I was on the front lawn of the property and aimed the gun at a sparrow perched high in a tree. Hazel Goldreich, Arthur's wife, was watching me and jokingly remarked that I would never hit the target. But she had hardly finished the sentence when the sparrow fell to the ground. I turned to her and was about to boast, when the Goldreichs' son Paul, then about five years old, turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, "David, why did you kill that bird? Its mother will be sad." My mood immediately shifted from one of pride to shame; I felt that this small boy had far more humanity than I did. It was an odd sensation for a man who was the leader of a nascent guerrilla army. — Nelson Mandela

You got great hair, babe." "Tate - ""Thick.""Tate - ""Soft.""Tate," I whispered. "Shame it gets hacked off with a knife after some guy rapes you with that knife!" he finished on a roar. My body jolted. "Tate!""There's bad guys out there, Ace. Bad. Do things to you that'll make you glad you end up dead. You don't open a goddamned door not knowin' who's behind it." "I thought it was you." "Well it wasn't." "Tate - ""He fuck you?" Tate asked suddenly and my head jerked again. "Brad?" I asked back, confused. Tate leaned in and bellowed, "Wood!""No!" I shouted back. Then I was flying through the air. Literally, flying through the air. I bounced once on the bed and then Tate was on top of me. — Kristen Ashley

And me not sleeping tonight or tomorrow night or any night for a long while, now that this has started. And he thought of her lying on the bed with the two technicians standing straight over her, not bent with concern, but only standing straight, arms folded. And he remembered thinking then that if she died, he was certain he wouldn't cry. For it would be the dying of an unknown, a street face, a newspaper image, and it was suddenly so very wrong that he had begun to cry, not at death but at the thought of not crying at death, a silly empty man near a silly empty woman, while the hungry snake made her still more empty.

How do you get so empty? he wondered. Who takes it out of you? And that awful flower the other day, the dandelion! It had summed up everything, hadn't it? 'What a shame! You're not in love with anyone!' And why not? — Ray Bradbury

Enthusiasm is the first step," she said. "Artfulness comes later."
"I hope I didn't disappoint you."
"I'm not displeased, Jovanno. Hells, having a lover that's new to the dance means you can train him properly. Give me a few nights and I'll have you whipped into proper form."
"The Asino brothers ... they always, well, they always invited me to go with them when they went out. To buy it, you know."
"There's no shame in doing that. And there's no shame in not having done it. But those two are hounds, Jovanno. Any woman could smell it a mile away. Sometimes a run with the hounds is just what you're in the mood for, but in the end they'll always roll around in muck and shit on your floor."
"Oh, they've got an endearing side," said Jean. "It comes out once a month, when the first moon is full. They're like backwards werewolves. — Scott Lynch

Admittedly, there's a certain coarseness about [businessmen]; for there's no point in even trying to be [one] unless your love for money is so absolute that you're ready to accompany it on the walk to a double suicide. For money, believe you me, is a hard mistress, and none of her lovers are let off lightly. As a matter of fact, I've just been visiting a businessman and, according to him, the only way to succeed is to practice the "triangled" technique: try to escape your obligations, annihilate your kindly feelings, and geld yourself of the sense of shame. — Soseki Natsume

Look around. Take the tour. Fear hangs on the wall and shame sometimes. Emotional dislocation too. But I am brave in my admission. Are you? When no one is looking, I check to see if anyone seems as scared as me, or lonely, or shy, or insecure. Is it just me? I'm not so sure. Is your heart an onion too? Show me yours, I'll show you mine we used to say. Your turn. Peel away. — Nikki Grimes

With rope-ladders learned I to reach many a window, with nimble legs did I climb high masts: to sit on high masts of perception seemed to me no small bliss; To flicker like small flames on high masts: a small light, certainly, but a great comfort to cast-away sailors and shipwrecked ones!
By diverse ways and wendings did I arrive at my truth; not by one ladder did I mount to the height where mine eye roveth into my remoteness. And unwillingly only did I ask my way - that was always counter to my taste! Rather did I question and test the ways themselves.
A testing and a questioning hath been all my travelling: and verily, one must also learn to answer such questioning! That, however - is my taste: Neither a good nor a bad taste, but my taste, of which I have no longer either shame or secrecy.
"This is now my way - where is yours?" Thus did I answer those who asked me "the way." For "the way" - it doth not exist! — Friedrich Nietzsche

If you do not love me, say, nonetheless, you do, for on your tongue falsehood for very shame would turn to truth. — Oscar Wilde

We are Adam and Eve born out of chaos called creation Ribbing me gave you life yet you forget there will always be a part of me in you yes I taunted and tempted you with my forbidden fruit does that make me the serpent too? Believe what you will but if I am exiled alone I know we will be together again someday naked without shame in paradise My thanks to you for being in on my sin — Megan McCafferty

Responsibilities and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgement, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value ... Honey, I've never placed an expectation on your or anyone else. The idea behind expectations requires that someone does not know the future or outcome and is trying to control behavior to get the required result. Humans try to control behavior largely through expectations. I know you and everything about you. Why would I have an expectation other than what I already know? And beyond that, because I have no expectations, you never disappoint me ... What I do have is a constant and living expectancy in our relationship, and I give you an ability to respond in any situation and circumstance in which you find yourself. To the degree that you resort to expectations and responsibilities, to that extent you neither know me nor trust me ... — Wm. Paul Young

[With depression] you get a real sense of shame, because your friends go, 'Oh come on, show me the lump, show me the x-rays,' and of course you've got nothing to show. — Ruby Wax

I'm so drunk," I said through the bathroom door, though it wasn't true. I'd declared it to him in my anxiety to take pressure and responsibility off of myself for what I wanted to do next. I had already decided I at least wanted to kiss him, be held. Yet my desire surprised me. I felt the weight of shame not only on rape now, but on sex too. I was confused by it. I felt unready to hold myself responsible for the decision if I slept with him. — Aspen Matis

When I was younger, I was told that there is too much inside me. That I have feelings where others have bone. At the age of seven, a doctor tapped inside my head and asked, "Do you choke on memories from time to time? Do you cry for no good reason at all? Do words take a hammer to your head and crack your skull?" Yes, yes, yes, I nodded. "Then you've definitely got them," he said, as he checked off a box on his list. "Too many feelings. What a shame. Try not to keep them inside or you'll drown. — Lora Mathis

His breathing was heavy and he was somber. He shivered still, and when his hand found me it was unsteady.
"Ah," I said smiling still, and kissing his shoulder.
"I hurt you!" he said.
"No, no, not at all, sweet Master," I answered. "But I hurt you! I have you, now!"
"Amadeo, you play with the devil."
"Dont you want me to, Master? Didn't you like it? You took my blood and it made you my slave!"
He laughed. "So that's the twist you put on it, isn't it?"
"Hmmm. Love me. What does it matter?" I asked.
"Never tell the others," he said. There was no fear or weakness or shame in it. — Anne Rice

There is another part of us that receives the judgments, and this part is called the Victim. The Victim carries the blame, the guilt, and the shame. It is the part of us that says, "Poor me, I'm not good enough, I'm not intelligent enough, I'm not attractive enough, I'm not worthy of love, poor me." The big Judge agrees and says, "Yes, you are not good enough." And this is all based on a belief system that we never chose to believe. — Miguel Ruiz

At the top of the page I wrote my full name [ ... ] At the sight of it, many thoughts rushed through me, but I could write down only this: "I wish I could love someone so much that I would die from it." And then as I looked at this sentence a great deal of shame came over me and I wept and wept so much that the tears fell on the page and caused all the words to become one great big blur. — Jamaica Kincaid

There is a certain kind of pain that can change you. Even the strongest sword, when placed in a raging fire, will soften and bend and change its form ...
Trust me on this one. I know this from personal experience. I hope that you never will, but, since you're a person, and therefore prone to making horrible, soul-splitting mistakes, you probably will one day know what this kind of guilt and shame feels like. And when that time comes, I hope you have the strength ... to take advantage of the fire and reshape your own sword. — Adam Gidwitz

But you, fine sir." John Miller clapped Dexter on the shoulder, a bit unsteadily. "You have problems of your own."
"This is true," Dexter replied, nodding.
"The women," John Miller sighed.
Dexter wiped a hand over his face, and glanced down the road. "The women. Indeed, dear squire, they perplex me as well."
"Ah, the fair Remy," John Miller said grandly, and I felt a flush run up my face. Lissa, in the front seat, put a hand to her mouth.
"The fair Remy," Dexter repeated, "did not see me as a worthwhile risk."
"Indeed."
"I am, of course, a rogue. A rapscallion. A musician. I would bring her nothing but poverty, shame, and bruised shins from my flailing limbs. She is the better for our parting."
John Miller pantomined stabbing himself in the heart. "Cold words, my squire."
"Huffah," Dexter agreed.
"Huffah," John Miller repeated, "Indeed. — Sarah Dessen

He thumbed quickly through the ledger and said, "When people see a cripple walking down the street, leaning on his cane, what do they feel?" Wylan looked away. People always did when Kaz talked about his limp, as if he didn't know what he was or how the world saw him. "They feel pity. Now, what do they think when they see me coming?"
Wylan's mouth quirked up at the corner. "They think they'd better cross the street."
Kaz tossed the ledger back in the safe. "You're not weak because you can't read. You're weak because you're afraid of people seeing your weakness. You're letting shame decide who you are. — Leigh Bardugo

So you want to be married, oh baby, trying to put me on a chain, ain't that some shame? You must be losing your weak little mind. — Jimi Hendrix

When she got to Eileen Reilly, Eileen turned red and said, "I would rather not say." This astounded me, for her father was a handsome, charming salesman at Home Savings Shoes on Main Street - Stan the Shoe Man, my mother affectionately called him. But his daughter had absorbed some disappointment - his, or her mother's - and did not want to speak of how he earned his living. Perhaps that was the moment I learned this as a source of personal shame, or observed the possibility of it. — Lorrie Moore

We grew up listening to alternative music from the '90s, and there was no shame in being on a major label and still making the music you wanted to make. I feel like rap rock came around and drew a line in the sand, and everybody that was like me ran away from that and started making indie-rock. — Nate Ruess

Mr. Schmidt had screamed at me in New York: LOSER! You English Loser ... I suppose he thought it was the most grievous insult he could hurl. But such a curse doesn't really have any effect on an English person - or a European - it seems to me. We know we're all going to lose in the end so it is deprived of any force as a slur. But not in the USA. Perhaps this is the great difference between the two worlds, this concept of Loserdom. In the New World it is the ultimate mark of shame - in the Old it prompts only a wry sympathy. — William Boyd

The whole crazy business seemed to pull out of my guts the very worst in me - my worst fears - the worst aspects of my character - my worst insecurities and feelings of shame and guilt. I didn't know it at the time, but that was exactly what was supposed to be happening. That's what Solomonic magick is all about. The worst in me was my problem. The worst in me was the demon. When it finally dawned on me that I had successfully evoked the demon, and I had the worst of me trapped in that magick Triangle, I had no alternative but to harness and redirect its monstrous power and give it new marching orders. From then on, that particular demon would be working for me rather than against me. — Lon Milo DuQuette

Never have I risked my life, or even my comfort, in the service of mankind. Shame on me. — Kurt Vonnegut

There was a great strain in our family because my father didn't want anything to do with me. He was happy to see my brother and sister, but not me. I don't know why. Maybe it was shame. I don't know. But he never wanted anything to do with me. That rejection was terribly hurtful and it went on for years. — Carol Vorderman

Do you know who W.H. Auden was, Mr. Iscariot? W.H. Auden was a poet who once said, "God may reduce you on Judgement Day to tears of shame reciting by heart the poems you would have written had your life been good" ... She was my poem, Mr. Iscariot. Her and the kids. But mostly her. You cashed in for silver, Mr. Iscariot. But me? Me ... I threw away gold. That's a fact. That's a natural fact. — Stephen Adly Guirgis

A great wave of humiliation and shame swept over me. Shame that I belonged to a race that could be so dealt with; and shame for my country, that it, the great example of democracy to the world, should be the only civilized, if not the only state on earth, where a human being would be burned alive. — James Weldon Johnson

My sense of teasing is completely lost on you.", Patrick said, hoisting himself back up. "It's a shame too. Most people tell me my sense of humor is my best quality, only outdone by my otherworldly good looks. — Nicole Williams

DENIAL OF EMOTIONS
Our culture does not handle emotions well. We like folks to be happy and fine. We learn rituals of acting happy and fine at an early age. I can remember many times telling people "I'm fine" when I felt like the world was caving in on me. I often think of Senator Muskie who cried on the campaign trail when running for president. From that moment on he was history. We don't want a president who has emotions. We would rather have one that can act! Emotions are certainly not acceptable in the workplace. True expression of any emotions that are not "positive" are met with disdain. — John Bradshaw

From the Grapes of Wrath and a woman that would not be moved: 'On'y way you gonna get me to go is whup me.' She moved the jack handle gently again. 'An' I'll shame you, Pa. I won't take no whuppin', cryin' an' a-beggin'. I'll light into you. An' you ain't so sure you can whup me anyways. An' if ya do get me, I swear to God I'll wait till you got your back turned, or you're settin' down, an' I'll knock you belly-up with a bucket. I swear to Holy Jesus' sake I will. — John Steinbeck

Let's get drunk," I state, clinking my glass with his.
"Sure you want to do that?" Dorian says with a raised eyebrow. He gives me that look a lot, probably because of all my questionable behavior.
"I'm not sure of anything anymore," I say with a cynical chuckle. "But I know I'm tired of disappointment. And I'm tired of keeping secrets. And I'm tired of fucking things up!"
Dorian nods, understanding my frustration. "Do you want me to help you?" he asks quietly. I know what he means. Dorian is offering to fix me like he did the day before.
"No," I shake my head. "I want you to drink with me. Then I want you to do things to me that are as dirty and immoral as I already feel." I take another hefty gulp and let the searing burn strip away the guilt and shame in my chest.
"Ok, let's get drunk." And with that Dorian downs the entire contents of his glass and turns on the music. — S.L. Jennings

We stopped to dine at Baltimore, and being now in Maryland, were waited on, for the first time, by slaves. The sensation of exacting any service from human creatures who are bought and sold, and being, for the time, a party as it were to their condition, is not an enviable one. The institution exists, perhaps, in its least repulsive and most mitigated form in such a town as this; but it is slavery; and though I was, with respect to it, an innocent man, its presence filled me with a sense of shame and self-reproach. — Charles Dickens

I also had another motto: Fool me once, shame on me. You won't fool me twice. — Karina Halle

The overture began. God! Strings! Oboes! Timpani! Are you fucking kidding me? Why, when we know what human beings are capable of doing, do we not turn our collective heads in shame at the sight of rich housewives screaming at each other on television? — Meg Howrey

This praise, though far from fulsome, gave me pleasure and that is to my shame. But there was something in him, some power of spirit, that made me want to please him. Perhaps, it occurs to me now, it was no more than the intensity of his wish. Men are distinguished by the power of their wanting. What this one wanted became his province and his meal, he governed it and fed on it from the first moment of desire. Besides, with the perversity of our nature, being tested had made me more desire to succeed, though knowing the enterprise to be sinful. — Barry Unsworth

About the same time I came in contact with another Christian family. At their suggestion I attended the Wesleyan church every Sunday. For these days I also had their standing invitation to dinner. The church did not make a favourable impression on me. The sermons seemed to be uninspiring. The congregation did not strike me as being particularly religious. They were not an assembly of devout souls; they appeared rather to be wordly-minded people, going to church for recreation and in conformity to custom. Here, at times, I would involuntarily doze. I was ashamed, but some of my neighbours, who were in no better case, lightened the shame. I could not go on long like this, and soon gave up attending the service. — Mahatma Gandhi

From a distance,' he says, 'my car looks just like every other car on the freeway, and Sarah Byrnes looks just like the rest of us. And if she's going to get help, she'll get it from herself or she'll get it from us. Let me tell you why I brought this up. Because the other day when I saw how hard it was for Mobe to go to the hospital to see her, I was embarrassed that I didn't know her better, that I ever laughed at one joke about her. I was embarrassed that I let some kid go to school with me for twelve years and turned my back on pain that must be unbearable. I was embarrassed that I haven't found a way to include her somehow the way Mobe has.'
Jesus. I feel tears welling up, and I see them running down Ellerby's cheeks. Lemry better get a handle on this class before it turns into some kind of therapy group.
So,' Lemry says quietly, 'your subject will be the juxtaposition of man and God in the universe?'
Ellerby shakes his head. 'My subject will be shame. — Chris Crutcher

I think I just said it, but I think it's worth repeating. They gave me hope that there is good in the world out there. There really is. It really does exist. Regardless of how bad things can be, and how down on your luck you can be, or how bad your trust is broken when it comes to warming up to people and all that stuff, I know that there's people out there that genuinely wanna help. Putting yourself in that position is a huge step, and it's a very risky and fragile step, but it's also a step that needs to be taken because there is help. And you can get through something like this. You really can. - Jim, from To the Survivors — Robert Uttaro

My fellow players are sometimes occupying the spaces I want to play in. That forces me to adjust my runs, based on the position of my fellow players. Unfortunately, they're often playing in my zones. I think that's a shame — Robin Van Persie

This creature serves you?" Sanya asked.
"This one and about a hundred smaller ones. And five times that many part-timers I can call in once in awhile." I thought about it. "It isn't so much that they serve me as that we have a business arrangement that we all like. They help me out from time to time. I furnish them with regular pizza."
"Which they ... love," Sanya said.
Toot spun in a dizzy, delighted circle on one heel, and fell onto his back with perfectly unself-conscious enthusiasm, his tummy sticking out as far as it could. He lay there for a moment, making happy, gurgling sounds.
"Well," I said. "Yes."
Sanya's eyes danced, though his face was sober. "You are a drug dealer. To tiny faeries. Shame. — Jim Butcher

Let us accept the possibility that there is, at death, not an abrupt cessation of energy, rather a dispersal. This seems more than reasonable to me. Mind you, I've owned a series of old cars, and Im used to turning off the motor only to experience a series of rumblings and explosions that would shame many a volcano. This is the sort of thing I'm conceptualizing, a kind of clunky running-on. And just as some cars are more susceptible to this behavior, so people vary in the length of time, and the force with which, their energy sputters and gasps ... My example is overly dramatic, but it is not wholly unreasonable, and it serves to make this genetic mutation a player at the evolutionary table. You see what I'm getting at: a biologically and evolutionally sound model for the soul. (I didn't say I'd achieved it.) Let's conceive of the soul as an aura that human beings wear on their backs, cumberson as a tortoise's carapace. Some are larger than others. — Paul Quarrington

Well sue me for staring. I'd be willing to scrub away my shame on his washboard abs. — Tia Giacalone

The Song of the Defeated
My master has bid me while I stand at the roadside,
to sing the song of Defeat,
for that is the bride whom He woos in secret.
She has put on the dark veil,
hiding her face from the crowd,
but the jewel glows on her breast in the dark.
She is forsaken of the day,
and God's night is waiting for her with its lamps lighted and flowers wet with dew.
She is silent with her eyes downcast;
she has left her home behind her,
from her home has come that wailing in the wind.
But the stars are singing the love-song of the eternal to a face sweet with shame and suffering.
The door has been opened in the lonely chamber,
the call has sounded,
and the heart of the darkness throbs with awe
because of the coming tryst. — Rabindranath Tagore

I should have seen it coming." The words don't surprise me, but they piss me off. I pull away and glare down at her. "Don't you fucking dare, Nell Hawthorne. Don't you dare put this on yourself. You should never have to see shit like this coming." She backs away, stunned and afraid by the intensity I know is radiating off me. "Colton, I just meant he's always shown - " "Stop. Just stop right there. Granted, you should've never gotten involved with a douchetard like him, but that's no excuse for what he did. — Jasinda Wilder

Czar Nicholas the Second was overthrown by Lenin in 1917."
I blink in surprise. "Yes," I say, "he was."
"And do you think I want to know that? IT's not even on your exam syllabus. I never had to know that. So now it's your turn to pick up a few pairs of shoes and make ooh and aah sounds for me becuase Jo ate prawns and she's allergic and she got sick and couldn't come and I'm not sitting on a bus on my own for five hours, OK?"
Nat takes a deep breath and I look at my hands in shame. I am a selfish, selfish person. I am also a very sparkly person; my hands are covered in gold glitter. — Holly Smale

All it takes for us to be guilty of theft is one misspent hour at work; one item we "forgot" to return from the office; one personal long-distance phone call we made at the company's expense; one overpriced item in our store. We see our sinless Lord, crucified for thieves not unlike the one hanging next to Him. Here was one person who never took what did not belong to Him, and who fulfilled all His obligations and paid debts He did not owe, and yet He hangs here next to a common thief, bearing His shame and guilt before God as though He had committed the crime. The thief crucified next to our Lord may have experienced the wrath of Rome that dark Friday afternoon, but because of the crucifixion of a Man just feet from him, he would not have to endure the wrath of heaven. All thieves who trust in Christ can expect to hear those same words on their death-bed from the spotless Lamb: "Today you shall be with me in Paradise. — Michael S. Horton

Often, when we are in trouble, or doubting, or struggling, we rely on others to carry us to God. Just as often we must do the carrying, to help friends who are struggling. This is one of the many benefits of organized religion, as we all need others to help us find God. Even though we may disagree with others and find life in a community occasionally annoying and sometimes scandalous, we need others, because the community is one way that we are carried to God, especially when we are too weak to walk to God on our own. But I wondered about the paralyzed man. He may have felt shame for his illness or for being unable to support himself. Maybe his friends carried him in spite of himself. Sometimes when we are too embarrassed to approach God, someone must bring us there - even drag us there. Many times when I am discouraged, demoralized, or angry at God, it is friends who remind me of God's great love and who carry me to God. We cannot come to God without others. — James Martin

Shame on me if I don't try to do more with what I have. It would be ... a terrible thing to waste this opportunity to try to make a difference. — Xavier Becerra

Thus spake brave Horatius, the captain of the gate. To all men upon this Earth, death cometh soon or late. And what better way to die, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of ones' fathers, and the temples of ones' G/Ds. For the tender mother, who dandled him to rest. And for the wife, who nurses his baby at her breast. And for the holy maidens, who feed the eternal flame. To save them from false sextus, that wrought the deed of shame. Lay down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may. I, with two more at either side, shall hold the foe in play. In Yon straight path a thousand may well be stop by three. Now who will stand on either hand and hold the bridge with me? — Thomas Babington Macaulay

I think that the heroism which at this day would make on us the impression of Epaminondas and Phocion must be that of a domestic conqueror. He who shall bravely and gracefully subdue this Gorgon of Convention and Fashion, and show men how to lead a clean, handsome and heroic life amid the beggarly elements of our cities and villages; whoso shall teach me how to eat my meat and take my repose and deal with men, without any shame following, will restore the life of man to splendor, and make his own name dear to all history. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I'll put a whole magazine of bullets in your skull. — Robert J. Crane

If there's friends around, I'll cook. Or if I have a girlfriend. But on my own I kind of fell out of the habit of it, and it's a shame really because I know it's good for me. It's something quite therapeutic. — Michael Fassbender

Why would you believe in me at all?"
He moved to lean forward on the railing, forearms folded with the blade dangling down over the river, his face in profile. Finally, he said, "I trust you."
"You shouldn't."
"I know," he muttered.
She heard the strain in his voice. His eyes cut to her, and she saw that he knew she had heard it. His body shifted into a position of determined nonchalance. "Logically speaking," he said lightly, "the idea that you hired someone to attack me doesn't make much sense. I'm not sure what your motive would be."
"I could have wanted to put an end to the rumors."
"That would be a shame. I like the rumors."
"Don't joke. — Marie Rutkoski

I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how it is with us. It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever. — Kazuo Ishiguro

Don't go woman on me and tell me you don't need a man to complete you. It's bullshit. Woman looks like you, goddamn waste. But a woman who has the love you got to give, that's not a waste. That's a crying shame. — Kristen Ashley

Hurt me once: shame on me. Hurt me twice: shame on me. Hurt me three times: shame on me but fuck you. Hurt me four times and we'll get severed-head biblical. — Trista Mateer

A few words which he wanted to emphasize were put into brackets or set off by quotation marks. My first impulse was to point out to him that it was ridiculous to put slang words and expressions between quotation marks, for that prevents them from entering the language. But I decided not to. When I received his letters, his parentheses made me shudder. At first, it was a shudder of slight shame, disagreeable. Later (and now, when I reread them) the shudder was the same, but I know, by some indefinable, imperceptible change, that it is a shudder of love- it is both poignant and delightful, perhaps because of the memory of the word shame that accompanied it in the beginning. Those parentheses and quotation marks are the flaw on the hip, the beauty mark on the thigh whereby my friend showed that he was himself, irreplaceable, and that he was wounded. — Jean Genet