"The shame that tormented me was all the more corrosive for having no very clear origin: I didn't know why I felt so tainted, and worthless, and wrong-only that I did, and whenever I looked up from my books I was swamped by slimy waters rushing in from all sides."

Shame, Trauma, Pain, Identity

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"The shame that tormented me was all the more corrosive for having no very clear origin: I didn't know why I felt so tainted, and worthless, and wrong-only that I did, and whenever I looked up from my books I was swamped by slimy waters rushing in from all sides."

Exlpore more Shame quotes

"You've got to vote for someone. It's a shame, but it's got to be done."

Whoopi Goldberg, American Actress

Shame, Vote

"Well it's because the record companies are pumping away with their commercial stuff. I think it's a shame."

Marian McPartland, English Musician

Shame,

"Most of the groups I worked with 30 years ago are either dead or dead broke. And it's a shame."

Ronnie Spector, American Musician

Shame, Years

"I felt ashamed.""But of what? Psyche, they hadn't stripped you naked or anything?""No, no, Maia. Ashamed of looking like a mortal -- of being a mortal.""But how could you help that?""Don't you think the things people are most ashamed of are things they can't help?"

C. S. Lewis, British Author

Shame, Mortality, Appearance, Humanity

"I've found the best treasure... You."

Robin Bielman, American Novelist

Shame, Love, Connection, Treasure, Emotion

"O shame! Where is they blush?"

William Shakespeare, English Dramatist

Shame, Regret, Truth, Wisdom, Life

"I was ashamed of myself for being ashamed of myself. I didn't like feeling like that."

Benjamin Alire Saenz, American Poet

Shame, Self-Awareness, Emotion, Growth

"Shame control us and our lives, it makes the choices we just state in spec and watch what's doing... as far as now it goes like a bot... auto!"

Deyth Banger, American Blogger

Shame, Truth, Wisdom, Power, Today

"It doesn't seem to matter what we think...The prince will come up here and look at us as if we're barrels in a trader's wagon. And if I'm salt pork and he doesn't care for salt pork, then there's nothing I can do."

Shannon Hale, American Author

Shame, Power, Judgment, Social, Conflict

"It's not oil that runs the world, it's shame."

Sherman Alexie, American Writer

Shame, Power, Control, Society

Explore more quotes by Donna Tartt

"I'm not sure whay I've been drawn to this subject, except that murder is a subject that has always drawn people for as long as people have been telling stories."

People

"Children - if you think back really what it was like to be a child and what it was like to know other children - children lie all the time."

Time

"Taking on challenging projects is the way that one grows and extends one's range as a writer, one's technical command, so I consider the time well-spent."

Time

"Everything takes me longer than I expect. It's the sad truth about life."

Life

"I just finished writing an essay about William Maxwell, an American writer whose work I admire very much."

Work

"The job of the novelist is to invent: to embroider, to color, to embellish, to make things up."

Job

"Sometimes you can do all the right things and not succeed. And that's a hard lesson of reality."

Reality

"To really be centered and to really work well and to think about the kinds of things that I need to think about, I need to spend large amounts of time alone."

Time

"I believe, in a funny way, the job of the novelist is to be out there on the fringes and speaking for an experience that has not really been spoken for."

Experience

"Children have very sharp powers of observation - probably sharper than adults - yet at the same time their emotional reactions are murky and much more primitive."

Time