She's In Denial Quotes & Sayings

She taught him that sometimes, when someone was in emotional denial, they needed proof of how wrong they really were. Sometimes they needed actions instead of words. Sometimes they needed someone to make the hard decision or to say the painful thing, or they would be lost and locked in their own hearts forever. — Amy Lane

Here were two people who had penetrated farther than she into the labyrinth of the wedded state, and struggled through some of its thorniest passages; and yet both, one consciously, the other half-unaware, testified to the mysterious fact which was already dawning on her: that the influence of a marriage begun in mutual understanding is too deep not to reassert itself even in the moment of flight and denial. — Edith Wharton

When faced with choosing between attributing their pain to "being crazy" and having had abusive parents, clients will choose "crazy" most of the time. Dora, a 38-year-old, was profoundly abused by multiple family perpetrators and has grappled with cutting and eating disordered behaviors for most of her life. She poignantly echoed this dilemma in her therapy:
I hate it when we talk about my family as "dysfunctional" or "abusive." Think about what you are asking me to accept - that my parents didn't love me, care about me, or protect me. If I have to choose between "being abused" or "being sick and crazy," it's less painful to see myself as nuts than to imagine my parents as evil. — Lisa Ferentz

Mr. and Mrs. Boffin sat staring at mid-air, and Mrs. Wilfer sat silently giving them to understand that every breath she drew required to be drawn with a self-denial rarely paralleled in history. — Charles Dickens

The story of Carol's transformation evoked complicated feelings in Rose. It appalled her, of course. The idea of an educated, metropolitan woman voluntarily casting off every vestige of modernity in order to make herself over as a medieval ghetto-dweller was unconscionable - but it also inspired a sneaking envy. By submitting to the restraints of Orthodoxy, Carol had not only performed an impressive act of self-denial - an act guaranteed to appeal to Rosa's ascetic sensibility - but also freed herself from the burden of trying to improvise her own moral code. These days, she always knew what the right thing to do was - or if she didn't, she knew a rabbi who did. Every aspect of her daily life was consonant with her convictions. — Zoe Heller

What Friedan gave to the world was, "the problem that has no name." She not only named it but dissected it. The advances of science, the development of labor-saving appliances, the development of the suburbs: all had come together to offer women in the 1950s a life their mothers had scarcely dreamed of, free from rampant disease, onerous drudgery, noxious city streets. But the green lawns and big corner lots were isolating, the housework seemed to expand to fill the time available, and polio and smallpox were replaced by depression and alcoholism. All that was covered up in a kitchen conspiracy of denial ...
[i]nstead the problem was with the mystique of waxed floors and perfectly applied lipstick. — Betty Friedan

No it's not!" said Constable Visit. "Atheism is a denial of a god."
"Therefore It Is A Religious Position," said Dorfl. "Indeed, A True Atheist Thinks Of The Gods Constantly, Albeit In Terms of Denial. Therefore, Atheism Is A Form Of Belief. If The Atheist Truly Did Not Believe, He Or She Would Not Bother To Deny. — Terry Pratchett

She couldn't live in denial of her own humanity. — Fuyumi Ono

Oddly then, in our search for meaning, we often assign victims too much blame for their assaults, and offenders too little. Our inconsistencies do not seem to trouble us, but they are truly puzzling. After all, if the offender is not to blame for his behavior, why would the victim be, no matter what she did our didn't do? Our views make sense, however, if you think that we are trying to reassure ourselves that we are not helpless and, that, in any case, no one is out to get us. — Anna C. Salter

For in that sad yet happy hour, she had learned not only the bitterness of remorse and despair, but the sweetness of self-denial and self-control, and led by her mother's hand, she had drawn nearer to the Friend who always welcomes every child with a love stronger than that of any father, tenderer than that of any mother. — Louisa May Alcott

I'm in total celebrity denial in general, but there's awareness that probably if somebody has met you, they might go and tell somebody. I just would rather have the word on the street stay at a neutral, not like, "She shows up in a ball gown," but "She seemed nice." That's fine. — Julie Bowen

Jill had described this kind of religious upbringing as a form of mental abuse, and I returned to the point, as follows: 'You use the words religious abuse. If you were to compare the abuse of bringing up a child really to believe in hell . . . how do you think that would compare in trauma terms with sexual abuse?' She replied: 'That's a very difficult question . . . I think there are a lot of similarities actually, because it is about abuse of trust; it is about denying the child the right to feel free and open and able to relate to the world in the normal way . . . it's a form of denigration; it's a form of denial of the true self in both cases. — Richard Dawkins

I'm not this unusual," she said. "It's just my hair."
She looked at Bobby and she looked at me, with an expression at once disdainful and imploring. She was forty, pregnant, and in love with two men at once. I think what she could not abide was the zaniness of her life. Like many of us, she had grown up expecting romance to bestow dignity and direction.
"Be brave," I told her. Bobby and I stood before her, confused and homeless and lacking a plan, beset by an aching but chaotic love that refused to focus in the conventional way. Traffic roared behind us. A truck honked its hydraulic horn, a monstrous, oceanic sound. Clare shook her head, not in denial but in exasperation. Because she could think of nothing else to do, she began walking again, more slowly, toward the row of trees. — Michael Cunningham

Food won't go down when you know your mother didn't want you, never liked to feed you, always hated you in her rooms. You were wrong to clutch and swallow and move your mouth. You must not be flushed, layered in fat or ripe from meat or she will despise your sight. Your skeleton cries, "I make no demands, I am ashamed of my needs, I am unworthy. I'm aware of those more deserving, those with prior and urgent claims to food." Skeleton says, "My safety is in slightness, my pride is denial. My victory is no gluttony, no guilt. — Jenny Holzer

And the kids?"
"Quincy, nothing. All she wants to do is look for Saturn's rings and bring home every creature from the pound. Nelson, though, he's ... " She looked at Nicholas. "He's like you. Gifted, but ignorant."
Nicholas bristled, "I'm not ignorant."
"You are about magic."
"That's because I don't believe in magic."
"Nicholas," She stopped, hands on hips, waiting until he turned around. "You're haunted. You see the dead. How can you not believe in magic? — Stephen M. Irwin

Deny a man pleasure, the possession of woman's body and he will show you his true colors.
He will dismiss his frustration onto her, forcibly abuse her, offend her all at the cost of his desires, the fulfillment of his this basic appetite. And if you are not yet convinced then award him the opportunity of having her unconscious and observe what he does henceforth.
He would consider the situation to be in his favor and make most of it.
No, he wouldn't be tender then, you are mistaken, he would be insidious much like a wild animal set loose, unleashed and untameable that is what he would really be.
Or lure a woman with the riches of the world and she will prove to you, her infidelity. And that is how people are, antagonistic when forced to come in terms with denial, authoritative if the situation demands them to be and hypocrites, their naked faces unanimously declaring a common color, black. — Chirag Tulsiani

She's probably in denial that she's a great big ball of insecurity and I'm quite well aware that I am one. — Boy George

She had locked something away,
something deep inside.

A truth that she had once known,
but chose to forget.

And she couldn't break free.

So I decided to search for it.

I went deep into the recess of her mind
and found that secret place.

And I broke in.. — Christopher J. Nolan

Dani," Decker said firmly. "Trust me, this is not a dream."
"Why is it you men always say trust me before spitting out something completely unpalatable?" she asked, irritation flickering through her. "Vampires aren't supposed to be real. And how come you had to be a cute vampire? You should be a dog. All evil, vile people should look as ugly as they are inside."
"We aren't ev
" Decker halted his denial, and then did something she hadn't yet seen him do and lifted his lips in a very rare-and in her opinion, totally inappropriate-grin as he asked, "You think I'm cute? — Lynsay Sands

Sleep, honey. We can play later." And if she hadn't seen it with her own tired eyes, she never would've believed it. Like the snuffing of a candle, he was asleep in seconds. Burning red hot one moment, a ghost of dissipating smoke the next.

Hope inventoried his unguarded face, softer and so much younger in sleep, his enviably long lashes hiding the ever present jadedness. Fatigue pulled at her and she fought it, forcing her eyes open when they drifted shut.

"I'm not gonna fall in love with you, Beck. I'm gonna leave you in August."

She whispered the vow to a man in deep sleep. To a room cast in shadow. To a house steeped in tradition. To a woman mired in denial.

Sleep took her quickly, quicker than she wanted, and with it came the mocking sound of her surely spoken promise, echoing in her dreams like a school yard taunt. — Jodi Watters

So, what...in the meantime, you just..." He glanced at her then back at the road. "Deny yourself?"

Em gave a half smile at the incredulity in his voice. Clearly it was a foreign concept to him. "It's okay. I have a battery operated boyfriend awaiting my attention when I get home."

He shot her a quick, open-mouthed stare, his lips parted enticingly. He looked so stunned at her admission she couldn't help but laugh.
"Sorry, didn't you know that women did that, too? Did I shock you?"

"Not at all." He recovered quickly, a big smile splitting his profile. "I'm just trying to decide which is sexier. Self-denial or self-abuse. — Amy Andrews

These are not sentimental keepsakes. She never looks at them, and often forgets what she has there. They are not booty, they don't have ritualistic significance. She does not take something every time she goes to Gordon's house, or every time she stays over, or to mark what she might call memorable visits. She doesn't do it in a daze and she doesn't seem to be under a compulsion. She just takes something, every now and then, and puts it away in the dark of the old tobacco tin, and more or less forgets about it. — Alice Munro

What the fuck kind of cruel joke was this? Elsa stared at the last page for nearly a minute in dumbfounded shock and denial. If she hadn't stolen the damned thing, she would've demanded a refund. She felt like screaming at the top of her lungs, but instead, all that came out was lunatic laughter. She really was insane and Mr. Black was all to blame. — Ella Dominguez

Kicked out for what?" Amina asked, and Dimple smiled like she'd won the $25,000 question.
"Atheism."
A small murmur went up in the room, followed by a few nervous glances. While everyone knew better than to actually believe in God, the outright denial of one seemed dangerous and possibly gauche — Mira Jacob

She had appetites in plenty: she spent all her strength in repressing them and she underwent this denial in anger. — Simone De Beauvoir

Part of the racialized sexism wants everyone to think that a 15-year old Mexican is not a girl, she's a woman. We know she's a girl. We can never emphasize this enough, because this is the fate of colored girls globally right now: the denial of their girlhood, the denial of their childhood, and the constant state of risk and danger they are living in. — Bell Hooks

I used to pray you know, pray to God that He would somehow stop it. All the nights of listening to my mother scream and things breaking. Of holding my brother and sister and listening to them cry and begging me to stop it.'
My voice is slow and steady like a freight train at night.
'I was too young, and we were always told that they'd put us in foster homes where people would rape us if we ever said anything. So we explained away the bruises and my mom wore big sunglasses whenever she left the house. And we invented car accidents if the bruising was too bad to cover with make-up. — Emily Andrews

30:20 - This is the way of an adulterous woman: she eats and wipes her mouth, and says, "I have done no wickedness." It's become a mantra in our society: "But I'm really a good person!" Unbelievers and believers alike often make this claim after they do what God's Word calls sin. But sin requires repentance, not self-justification or denial. — Charles F. Stanley

It would take a denial of all cultural tradition for women to produce even a true 'female' art. For a woman who participates in (male) culture must achieve and be rated by standards of a tradition she had no part in making - and certainly there is no room in that tradition for a female view, even if she could discover what it was. — Shulamith Firestone

Show me a mother who says she is 100 percent gentle, 100 percent of the time, and I'll show you a mother in deep, deep denial, and probably passive-agressive to boot. - Lynn Siprelle — Hilary Flower

She laughs. "You're so much like your father. Sometimes I wonder if you got any of my DNA at all."

I've never really seen any similarities between my dad and me. Except our love of business - our drive to succeed. We've always been evenly matched in that respect. Otherwise, my father's as straight-laced as they come. A dedicated, loyal family man through and through. Pretty much the opposite of me in every way.

"I am?"

She's still chuckling. "One day I'll tell you how your dad and I really ended up together at Columbia. And I'll include all the dirty little details he never wanted you to know."

If that story involves sex in any way, I don't want to hear it.

Ever.

As far as I'm concerned, my parents have had sex two times in their entire lives. Once for Alexandra and once for me. That's it. On some level I realize I'm deluding myself, but this is one topic where I prefer to live in denial. — Emma Chase

After slipping on a negligee and making herself comfortable on the lounge, she became conscious that she was miserable and that the tears were rolling down her cheeks. She wondered if they were the tears of self-pity, and tried resolutely not to cry, but this existence without hope, without happiness, oppressed her, and she kept shaking her head from side to side, her mouth drawn down tremulously in the corners, as though she were denying the assertion made by some one, somewhere. She did not know that this gesture of hers was years older than history, that, for a hundred generations of men, intolerable and persistent grief has offered that gesture, of denial, of protest, of bewilderment, to something more profound, more powerful than the God made in the image of man, and before which that God, did he exist, would be equally impotent. It is a truth set at the heart of tragedy that this force never explains, never answers - this force intangible as air, more definite than death. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Men need two things to operate their mouth, and neither are their brain," she said.
"And what are those?" Mrs. Larson inquired. Everyone in the room fell silent in anticipation of the answer.
"A whim and a foot," my mother replied, to much laughter from the ladies in the room, and fervent denial from the men. — J. Glen Percy

Claire hated to say it, but she knew the answer, in her heart. "Because he feels something for me, and he wanted to give me a chance to live. Like him. With him. But I refused."
Shane turned and looked at her, a blank expression on his face that turned quickly into ... something else. Claire was glad Myrnin had gotten out while he still could. "Great," he said. "I knew it."
"It's not like that. He's - " She shook her head in frustration. "It's not like he's in love with me or anything; it's more complicated than that. I don't even think he understands it, exactly."
"Yeah, he only loves you for your mind," Shane said ... — Rachel Caine

She saw it over and over again in her male patients, she said - it could probably qualify as an epidemic among American men: this stubborn reluctance to embrace our wholeness - this stoic denial that we had come from our mothers as well as our fathers. It was sad, really - tragic. So wasteful of human lives, as our wars and drive-by shootings kept proving to us; all one had to do was turn on CNN or CBS News. And yet, it was comic, too - the lengths most men went to to prove that they were tough guys. — Wally Lamb

The techniques are all means of dealing with one simple idea: She wrote it. (That is, the "wrong" person
in this case, female
has created the "right" value
i.e., art.)
Denial of Agency: She didn't write it.
Pollution of Agency: She shouldn't have written it.
Double Standard of Content: Yes, but look what she wrote about.
False Categorizing: She is not really she [an artist] and it is not really it [serious, of the right genre, aesthetically sound, important, etc.] so how could "she" have written "it"?
Or simply: Neither "she" nor "it" exists (simple exclusion). — Joanna Russ

I hope someday she meets just the right man and has babies - a whole passel of babies, more than I could have - so she understands how it kills me now that she won't let me hug her when she's in obvious distress. (The Life You've Imagined) — Kristina Riggle

Maybe she didn't have the best occupation in the universe, but it kept her fed. Her stomach rumbled a denial. I don't need to hear it from you, too. Everyone wanted to give her attitude today. Grabbing — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The sudden silence is horrifying, and it seems to catch my mother off guard. A tiny whimper escapes her, the sound amplified in the stillness. Surely, my father hears her now; surely he and I can't go on pretending she isn't crying. — Margaret Peterson Haddix

The increasing tendency towards seeing people in terms of one dominant 'identity' ('this is your duty as an American', 'you must commit these acts as a Muslim', or 'as a Chinese you should give priority to this national engagement') is not only an imposition of an external and arbitrary priority, but also the denial of an important liberty of a person who can decide on their respective loyalties to different groups (to all of which he or she belongs). — Amartya Sen

This initial numbness and denial is shock and it is a gift. Shock is a grace period. It gives a woman time to gather what she needs around her, before the exhaustion and panic set in like a heavy snow. Shock allows her time to circle her people so that she can enter the hard work of grief, which will require all of her. Shock is the window offered after the fall so a woman can prepare herself for winter. Two — Glennon Doyle Melton

The macabre who lived through the war have a story they loved to tell about the soldiers of the Foreign Legion giving a ball in the expanses around Verdun and dancing with the corpses. Alabama's continued brewing of the poisoned filter for a semiconscious banquet table, her insistence on the magic and glamor of life when she was already feeling its pulse like the throbbing of an amputated leg, had something of the same sinister quality. — Zelda Fitzgerald

Two shadowy figures had appeared in the distance. A young girl led a donkey by its halter, chattering to a child perched on its swaying back. What in God's name were they doing out alone at night? They headed down the dirt road straight toward the house where Tehrazzi was apparently holed up. Every muscle in her body went rigid with denial. "Oh no ... " Had Dec heard the kids? Did he know they were in danger? Could he alert the children before the air strike? Not if he hadn't seen them. What should she do? She was too afraid to yell out in case someone started shooting, but no way could she sit back and let those children suffer. The breath shot in and out of her nose as she counted backward from ten, praying Dec would do something so she wouldn't have to. Ten, nine, eight ... The little boy laughed. Bryn squeezed her eyes — Kaylea Cross

What most people call spontaneous recall usually involves memories that have been denied, not repressed. The survivor has always been aware that the sexual abuse happened, but he or she has studiously avoided thinking about it. A catalyst sets the memory process in motion, but the essential factor in the memory surfacing is the readiness of the survivor to deal with the reality of abuse. — Renee Fredrickson

Mother is in herself a concrete denial of the idea of sexual pleasure since her sexuality has been placed at the service of reproductive function alone. She is the perpetually violated passive principle; her autonomy has been sufficiently eroded by the presence within her of the embryo she brought to term. Her unthinking ability to reproduce, which is her pride, is, since it is beyond choice, not a specific virtue of her own. — Angela Carter

What was the payoff? It obviously kept me in my cozy zone of being in control, being a good mother, with a good daughter. Most of all, I realize, is that it allowed me to maintain the lie that she was healed, that Nick hadn't permanently damaged her, that I'd truly saved her. Because if I did, if there was no lasting residue of him, it meant that the denial that kept me in the marriage long enough for him to hurt her didn't help create the situation she's in now.
The person who I worked hardest to keep safe seems to have been me. — Claire Fontaine

It was early in my career, and I had been seeing Mary, a shy, lonely, and physically collapsed young woman, for about three months in weekly psychotherapy, dealing with the ravages of her terrible history of early abuse. One day I opened the door to my waiting room and saw her standing there provocatively, dressed in a miniskirt, her hair dyed flaming red, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a snarl on her face. "You must be Dr. van der Kolk," she said. "My name is Jane, and I came to warn you not to believe any the lies that Mary has been telling you. Can I come in and tell you about her?" I was stunned but fortunately kept myself from confronting "Jane" and instead heard her out. Over the course of our session I met not only Jane but also a hurt little girl and an angry male adolescent. That was the beginning of a long and productive treatment. — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

Rosa wasn't far from wrong. In her naked loveliness, she appeared to be an angel.
But Jared was mortal, and he wanted her as he had never wanted a woman before. He carefully lowered his head and kissed the pulse in her throat. Then his lips traveled with a blissful laziness over her breasts, nibbling and licking lightly so she wouldn't ever know that he had worshiped at this temple of her body. She was forbidden to him. It was a self-imposed denial, but that made it even more binding. — Sandra Brown

In my view, the spurning of DID is highly connected with knowing and not knowing about child sexual abuse. Side by side with denial of childhood trauma and of severe dissociation, is an unmistakable cognizance of dissociative processes as they are embedded in our language. We regularly say things such as, "pull yourself together", "he is coming unglued", "she was beside herself", "don't fall apart", "he's not all there", "she was shattered", and so on. — Elizabeth Howell

She's in that state of mind that she wants to deny something -only she doesn't know what to deny! — Lewis Carroll

Actually, nothing hurts like hearing the word slut, unless it is hearing the word rape dropped about carelessly. Again, a word I wouldn't have thought much about, except that when I was in high school a girl gave her senior speech on her best friend's rape. She ended not with an appear for women's rights or self defense, but by begging us to consider our language. We use the word 'rape' so casually, for sports, for a failed test, to spice up jokes. 'The test raped me.' 'His smile went up to justifiable rape.' These references confer casualness upon the word, embedding it into our culture, stripping it of shock value, and ultimately numb us to the reality of rape. — Christine Stockton

As the incidence and fear of rape on college campuses have increased, the term rape has been generalized to mean 'misuse; diminish the effects of; steal; defeat': "I just went to the mall and raped my VISA." "My dad phoned this morning and raped my buzz." "She raped my coat." "Michigan got raped by Carolina in the NCAA final." The extension of the term rape to such contexts ameliorates the word and appears a denial on the part of college students of the seriousness of the crime. — Connie C. Eble

Amy might not have had the most exciting life over the past few years, up here in her room, but she must have been fighting death to the very end. Sara could understand why she had been in denial or so long. It must have been a frightening realization: so many books she would never get to pick up, so many stories that would happen without her, so many authors she would never get to discover.

That night, Sara sat in Amy's library for hours, thinking about how tragic it was that the written word was immortal while people were not, and grieving for her, the woman she had never met. — Katarina Bivald

If you meet a woman in a burqa, she can't reply to your smile. It's a denial of identity. — Jean-Francois Cope

Why did she give up wine for Lent? Polly was more sensible. She had given up strawberry jam. Cecilia had never seen Polly show more than a passing interest in strawberry jam, although now, of course, she was always catching her standing at the open fridge, staring at it longingly. The power of denial. — Liane Moriarty

Thigpen gave her that cringing, sly feeling incompetents in denial always engendered. In government service, she'd felt it enough times to trust her instincts. Randy — Nevada Barr

As she relaxed against his chest, he pulled her in closer. Turning her face into his shirt, she breathed in the calming scent that was him. "I'm sorry," she mumbled into the fabric.
One big hand stroked over her head, down her long ponytail to rub her back in soothing circles. "No, I'm sorry. You've told me before it made you uncomfortable and I pushed. That was an asshole move. You're entitled to your feelings and I shouldn't fight against them. I'm sorry." He dropped a kiss on her temple.
And with that little apology, she stepped off the cliff of denial and fell headfirst into love with Brett Wallace. — Jeanette Murray

She had been expecting me and was ready. She gave a long slow soundless headshake, merciful only in being inarticulate. This mercy didn't prevent its hurling at me the largest finest coldest 'Never!' I had yet, in the course of a life that had known denials, had to take full in the face. I took it and was aware that with the hard blow the tears had come into my eyes. So for a while we sat and looked at each other; after which I slowly rose. I was wondering if some day she would accept me; but this was not what I brought out. I said as I smoothed my hat: 'I know what to think then. It's nothing! — Henry James