"I don't remember what they said, only the fury of their words, how the air turned raw and full of welts. Later it would remind me of birds trapped inside a closed room, flinging themselves against the windows and the walls, against each other."

Trauma, Truth, Anger, Memory, Suffering

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"I don't remember what they said, only the fury of their words, how the air turned raw and full of welts. Later it would remind me of birds trapped inside a closed room, flinging themselves against the windows and the walls, against each other."

Exlpore more Trauma quotes

"Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I'll wake up with sweat drenching my chest and think it's the blood and muck I was covered in that night."

Shannon A. Thompson, American Author

Trauma, Memory, Emotion, Stress

"Ultimate horror often paralyses memory in a merciful way."

H. P. Lovecraft, American Novelist

Trauma, Horror, Memory, Fear

"The aftermath of bearing shackles is an exquisite devastation, fraught with the ravages of survival. Even though one is no longer held captive-be that from a person, a government, or one's inner self-the scars are deeply engraved into one's psyche, and there's no remedy for the soul. Many have the misconception that freedom equals happiness forever and ever.That's a wicked delusion."

Laura Kreitzer, American Author

Trauma, Freedom, Survival, Healing

"Have you ever experienced a shattering in your own personal life? Where death, divorce, financial loss, failure, or disaster changed your world to such an extent that you weren't sure how to rebuild again? Clearing the debris from the aftermath is a great first step. It enables you to start with a clean slate so you can rebuild exactly what you desire. Where can you begin?"

Susan C. Young, American Author

Trauma, Recovery, Life, Power, Inspirational

"Shock is a merciful condition. It allows you to get through disaster with a necessary distance between you and your feelings."

Lisa Kleypas, American Novelist

Trauma, Disaster, Feelings, Distance, Emotion

"The first several years of my life were used to upload incredible amounts of fear, and I just became afraid of everything. I was afraid of my parents, afraid of my classmates, afraid of the streets of Washington, D.C. I would flinch at every gesture."

Henry Rollins, American Musician

Trauma, Fear, Anxiety, Childhood, Memory

"That was the dirty secret associated with her past. Not that she'd been abused but that somehow she felt that she deserved it because she'd let it happen. Even now, it shamed her, and there were times when she felt hideously ugly, as though the scars that had been left behind were visible to everyone."

Nicholas Sparks, American Author

Trauma, Regret, Truth, Pain, Shame

"The moment her hymen was plucked from her body in the wilderness, Her soul was taken from sanity."

Roman Payne, American Novelist

Trauma, Body, Madness, Soul

"That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up. And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own."

Toni Morrison, American Novelist

Trauma, Racism, Identity, Pain, Violence

"Because the past was always around her and might return at any time. It prowled the world searching for her, and she knew it was growing angrier at every passing day."

Nicholas Sparks, American Author

Trauma, Past, Fear, Memory, Escape

Explore more quotes by Sue Monk Kidd

"Up until then I'd thought that white people and colored people getting along was the big aim, but after that I decided everybody being colorless together was a better plan. I thought of that policeman, Eddie Hazelwurst, saying I'd lowered myself to be in this house of colored women, and for the very life of me I couldn't understand how it had turned out this way, how colored women had become the lowest ones on the totem pole. You only had to look at them to see how special they were, like hidden royalty among us. Eddie Hazelwurst. What a shitbucket."

Society

"I can't explain that, except to say there's release in knowing the truth no matter how anguishing it is. You come finally to the irreducible thing, and there's nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it. Then, at least, you can enter the severe mercy of acceptance."

Philosophy

"Mr. Vesey, though, he didn't like any kind of talk about heaven. He said that was the coward's way, pining for life in the hereafter, acting like this one didn't mean a thing. I had to side with him on that."

Religion

"My mother's life was way too heavy for me."

Family

"I think there must be a place inside of us where dreams go and wait their turn."

Mindset

"I realized that lacking the feminine, the language had communicated to me in subtle ways that women were nonentities, that women counted mostly as they related to men."

Society

"Every living creature on the earth is special. You want to be the one that puts an end to one of them?"

Compassion

"I learned a long time ago that some people would rather die than forgive. It's a strange truth, but forgiveness is a painful and difficult process. It's not something that happens overnight. It's an evolution of the heart."

Forgiveness

"Nobody around here had ever seen a lady beekeeper till her. She liked to tell everybody that women made the best beekeepers, 'cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting. It comes from years of loving children and husbands."

Life

"I worried so much about how I looked and whether I was doing things right, I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being one."

Self