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"She had wanted me to hold rape inside me like a dark pearl, keep it in there, as it grew, as I grew cramped, as it overtook me as hidden things do. Secrets become lies. I'd carried in every step I took this lie, the shame of it."
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"I've found the best treasure... You."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Ira Gershwin, shame on him. I mean, some of the writing."
Author Name
Personal Development
"One is never so dangerous when one has no shame, than when one has grown too old to blush."
Author Name
Personal Development
"That's the trouble with anything which essentially has a lot of bits that are physically impossible: You're left, stuck, in the studio. And that's a shame. You're making a movie. You don't want it to stay put, you want it to be a movie - to move."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Most of the groups I worked with 30 years ago are either dead or dead broke. And it's a shame."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Nobody can stop you but you. And shame on you if you're the one who stops yourself."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Shame weakens us. It can make us frightened to take on something new. We start to withdraw from whatever might give us pleasure, self-esteem, or a sense of our value."
Author Name
Personal Development
"You've got to vote for someone. It's a shame, but it's got to be done."
Author Name
Personal Development
"And then I turn another corner, and my chest constricts so tightly, so painfully, that I can no longer breathe. Because there he is. He's engrossed in an oversize book, hunched over and completely absorbed. A breeze ruffles his dark hair, and he bites his nails. . . . Several other people are soaking up the rare sunshine, but as soon as they're registered, they're forgotten. Because of him. I grip the edge of a sidewalk café table to keep from falling. The diners stare in alarm, but I don't care. I'm reeling, and I gasp for air. How can I have been so stupid? How could I have ever for a moment believed I wasn't in love with him?"
Author Name
Personal Development
"You can cry, ain't no shame in it."
Author Name
Personal Development
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"I'd have to be impolite, an inconvenience, and sometimes awkward. But if I could commit, all that discomfort would add up to zap predatory threads like a Taser gun. I'd stun them. They'd bow to me. I'd let my no echo against the mountains.And better to feel bad for a moment saying no-and stop it-than to get harmed.I would take better care.That small word, no. I'd see its deity."
Boundaries
"My relationship with my mother trapped me in the identity of a child."
Identity
"Beneath hot sun, desert roses bloomed. Under cold moon, I still refused to."
Defiance
"I was promising myself strength.I had to write it, say it, make the effort and fake it before I actually believed I could do it."
Strength
"I needed to stop hiding: I was raped. It was time to honestly be exactly who I was. I saw-the shame wasn't mine, it was his, and I could stop misrepresenting myself, and I could accept myself."
Healing
"He hadn't treated me with the love and compassion I wanted, but I was worthy of that love, and someday some boy would have it for me. I hadn't found it yet, but I would find it soon."
Love
"I no longer needed to peel myself of my skin, or to hide. To Dash the colorless ephemeral things that existed just beneath my surface were as vivid as the beauty marks he traced on my cheek."
Authenticity
"These tools were my parents' way of saying: What you're doing is important. We support it. We want to help you find your way."
Support
"I was passive by nature. I had always been. Arguing felt unnatural and uncomfortable. I was always agreeing even when I didn't really, instinctively looking for ways to forfeit power, to become more dependent, to be taken care of. I realized how intensely Icecap reminded me of Jacob. They were similar, both diligent and harsh in their judgments-and my big brother's sureness had always comforted me.But as I ran on sore legs to keep up with Icecap, my tendency toward silence stressed me."
Dependence
"This was trail magic. Sea Breeze's fire, his light, his heat, his life, remained, their salvation. It is a fact that all drainages, if followed downhill, lead to the same lowland water body. Lost and fallen hikers follow drainages down because walking ridges is harder. And so, despite the complex web of paths, waterfalls, cliffs, as a hiker wanders downhill, drainages merge, faint, abstract paths coalesce, thicken, until there is one path " the one, natural, trodden way. It isn't a coincidence that Sea Breeze, Brandon Day and Gina Allen, and countless other hikers all wandered, lost, down the same steep slope to nowhere."
Survival
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