Quotes About Guilt

That guilt is a jealous lover.

she was only here because she didn't have the guts to be anywhere else. Because she felt like the last guest at an unsuccessful party, too guilt-ridden to leave.

The way it works in real life is that guilt is proportionate. In other words, there are degrees of guilt.

Jack Newlin had no choice but to frame himself for murder.

People say you need to be strong, smart, and lucky to survive hard times, war, a natural disaster, or physical torture. But I say emotional abuse—anxiety, fear, guilt, and degradation—is far worse and much harder to survive.

They don't find peace. It's pure bullshit. When something unspeakable happens, or when you do something unspeakable, it changes you. It takes you apart and reassembles you. You are a Frankenstein of circumstance, and the parts never fit back quite right and the life you live is a stolen one. You don't deserve to walk among the living, and you know it.

Sometimes it seemed like that was all it was, motherhood—grief and guilt and fear. You said good-bye a little every day—from the minute they left your body until they left your home.

Sarah's death and how it haunted you, how you were swallowed by your guilt. But your mother was at least partially responsible for how you handled that situation as well. Let's not forget that you were just a kid. With the right guidance, you might have come through that incident better." Jones

A Separate Peace by John Knowles. Seminal coming-of-age tale. Intense adolescent friendship gone awry. Having to face yourself because of your own ugly deeds. Did Gene bounce the branch on purpose? Of course he did. Whether he realized it or not. No one else in class wanted to believe it. "It was an accident," the pert and pretty Jenna said. She sounded almost desperate. "He couldn't. He just wouldn't. They

seemed like that was all it was, motherhood—grief and guilt and fear. You said good-bye a little every day—from the minute they left your body until they left your home. But no, that wasn't all. There was that love, that wrenching, impossible love.

After each dream, Frankie woke with a start, soaked in tears. But she found no relief in the peaceful silence of her room, because there everything was real. And the guilt was too immense to bear. Each time she opened her eyes, she'd quickly shut them. And wish that she had woken up for the very last time.

You know, sometimes it's nice to just have someone to blame, even if it has to be yourself, even if it doesn't make sense.

Then, in the same way that his own dwelling slipped away behind him as he rounded a corner on his bicycle, the dream slipped away from his thoughts. Very briefly, a little guiltily, he tried to grasp it back. But the feelings had disappeared. The Stirrings were gone.

Feared that she was slated to be dragged though all that stale guilt

Hell. I saw Cassie running for that car and you know what ran through my mind, Merrie?" he asked her painfully. Merinus sighed deeply. "That you had failed." She surprised him with that answer. "You couldn't protect your own, and now you hadn't protected Cassie either." "Yeah," he breathed out roughly. "But how did you know?" "Because it's the same thing Sherra told me before she locked herself in her room

If he was hurt, it would be her fault. And it wasn't fair, she thought with an edge of self-pity. If anyone got to hurt him, it should be her. Not strangers that didn't know him.

do it later. Guilt still gnawed on

Denial, when one was accused, was a life force, and would trump any desire to confess. Perhaps this was the animal strength of the psychopathic brain. Or the psychopathy of the animal brain. An admission of guilt would knock the strength right out of you—making it easier for them to twist your arms behind you and put the handcuffs on.

The goat herder was so unaccustomed to human company that he was short of words even in his inner speech. It was common knowledge that the Yugoslavs hated each other more than they could ever hate a foreigner or an invader. A guilty man wishes only to be understood, because to be understood is to appear to be forgiven. Atrocities are something nothing less than the vengeance of the tormented. The human heart likes a little disorder in its geometry. Love delayed is lust augmented.

I almost wish I hadn't any conscience, it's so inconvenient. If I didn't care about doing right, and didn't feel uncomfortable when doing wrong, I should get on capitally. I can't help wishing, sometimes, that father and mother hadn't been so dreadfully particular about such things.

You can't get over things you do to other people as easily as you get over things they do to you.

Whenever he was about to commit some particularly heinous act, he first found a character flaw in the victim then proceeded with a serene conscience.

For you know me well enough, my good Sir, to be persuaded that I am not guilty of affectation when I tell you it is my great and sole desire to live and die, in peace and retirement, on my own farm.

As in the American south, an exaggerated sense of romantic honor may have been an unconscious way for slaveholders to flaunt their moral superiority, purge pent-up guilt, and cloak the brutish nature of their trade.