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Quotes About Guilt

But this sense of guilt and inevitable failure was balanced by something else: that is, the instinct to survive. Even a creature that is weak, ugly, cowardly, smelly and in no way justifiable still wants to stay alive and be happy after its own fashion. I could not invert the existing scale of values, or turn myself into a success, but I could accept my failure and make the best of it. I could resign myself to being what I was, and then endeavour to survive on those terms.
~ George Orwell
In un regime la memoria è colpa.
~ George Orwell
I don't know why, but any thought of the future upsets me intolerably. So I had to turn and look back at certain aspects of the past, and only then did I recover my calm. I thought of our friendship and was overcome by guilt at having allowed so much bitterness to invade my wretched heart. I recalled the joys and sorrows we had shared. Both are so dear to me that I began to sob like a woman when I remembered them.
~ George Sand
When a child is lost there is no end to the self-torment a parent may inflict. When we love, and the object of our love is small, weak, and vulnerable, and has looked to us and us alone for protection; and when such protection, for whatever reason, has failed, what consolation (what justification, what defense) may there possibly be?
~ George Saunders
On Final Twist , five college friends take a sixth to an expensive Italian restaurant, supposedly to introduce him to a hot girl, actually to break the news that his mother is dead. This is the InitialTwist. During dessert they are told that, in fact, all of their mothers are dead. This is the SecondTwist. The ThirdTwist is, not only are all their mothers dead, the show paid to have them killed, and the fourth and FinalTwist is, the kids have just eaten their own grilled mothers.
~ George Saunders
It only takes a few minutes, a few seconds, to become a murderer. Before that you're a man like any other.
~ Georges Simenon
Miss Grantham's sense of humour got the better of her at this point, and, tottering towards a chair, she sank into it, exclaiming in tragic accents:'Oh Heavens! I am betrayed!' His lordship blenched; both he and Miss Laxton regarded her with guilty dismay. Miss Grantham buried her face in her handkerchief, and uttered one shattering word: 'Wretch!
~ Georgette Heyer
There was no way to laugh anymore, to love, to care, and there was a sense of guilt in having survived when others had been killed. I turned into a worse workaholic than I had already been by trying to work myself into the ground.
~ Romeo Dallaire
Many people think I am workaholic. Sometimes I feel guilty that I have missed out many moments as my daughter and son growing up, but balancing between home and work is extremely important.
~ Rituparna Sengupta
I do feel kind of guilty sometimes 'cause, like, I could buy myself a $5,000 dress or a $3,000 dress, and I'm buying these things, but I'm knowing that my cousin need money for the rent. And then I gotta tell myself, 'Stop feeling guilty. You worked for this.'
~ Cardi B
I think while all mothers deal with feelings of guilt, working mothers are plagued by guilt on steroids!
~ Arianna Huffington
Working moms commonly testify that they feel guilty when they are away from their children and guilty when they are not at their jobs. Devoted fathers certainly miss their children deeply, but it does not seem to be with the same gnawing, primal anxiety that often afflicts women.
~ Camille Paglia
I certainly don't feel any more super than any of the other people I knew in my working life... Quite the reverse. In fact, guilt is my middle name, and I think anybody who does do that thing with work and children and everything knows exactly what I'm talking about.
~ Jennifer Rowe
We weren't very wealthy, but I had a real working-class guilt about wanting to perform. I felt disdain towards it because of the thought that performers were looking for attention. I did theatre studies for my A levels, but didn't think a career as a performer was something I could do.
~ Roisin Conaty
I don't do guilt, but if I were to squint in that direction, it's probably enjoying simple computer games like Zuma. But I regard such things as part of my hand-eye coordination workout.
~ Jo Beverley
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.
~ Hunter S. Thompson
There is a painful joke that Europeans often tell of their Gallic neighbors: God created France, the most beautiful country in the world with so much good in it, and ended up feeling guilty about it. He had to do something to make it fair. And so, he created the French people.
~ Janine di Giovanni
There is no refuge from memory and remorse in this world. The spirits of our foolish deeds haunt us, with or without repentance.
~ Gilbert Parker
I read till I fall asleep. Daytime actually I feel guilty reading - I always feel I should be doing something else!
~ Rajkumar Hirani
Whenever I feel mom-guilt, or I feel pressure to be a better mom - to cook salmon on a bed of quinoa for my kids - I just think to myself, 'I... have... suffered... enough.' And then I feel fine about feeding my toddler a bag of chips for dinner.
~ Ali Wong
There is the crime and there is silence.
~ Sarah Blake
He's following me... He needs to have a secret but he can´t help telling the heat is going out of me. The heart is going out of me, and though she cannot remember she cannot forget. Clutching a fistful of sand. What ties me to you is guilt. I crossed two rivers and wept by one I am the beast at the end of the rope Happy and free.
~ Sarah Kane
Ce n'est pas votre faute. -JE SAIS. -Mais vous l'autorisez. (Silence) Non ? Le matin apporte la défaite. belle douleur qui dit que j'existe et demain une vie plus équilibrée. -Si je suis en colère c'est parce que je comprends, pas le contraire. Je vous ai toujours bien aimé même quand je vous détestais.
~ Sarah Kane
With each of his new misfortunes I'm punished further, with secret guilt, for wishing all of it on him, long ago.
~ Sarah Manguso