"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."

Shame, Secrets, Trauma, Truth

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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."

Exlpore more Shame quotes

"We would not be ashamed of doing some of the things we do in private, if the number of sane human beings who do them in public were large enough."

Mokokoma Mokhonoana, South African Philosopher

Shame, Truth, Humanity, Privacy

"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."

Sharon Salzberg, American Author

Shame, Fear, Truth, Self-Worth

"Shame comes in different doses."

Carla H. Krueger, American Author

Shame, Emotion, Guilt, Humanity

"She told me that women who wore makeup had bad values. Putting on makeup would have been a statement-a rebellion. I didn't try it. I grew to feel guilty for wanting to feel attractive."

Aspen Matis, American Author

Shame, Beauty, Rebellion, Gender

"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

"O shame! Where is they blush?"

William Shakespeare, English Dramatist

Shame, Regret, Truth, Wisdom, Life

"Reproach is shame, blame, disgrace, disapproval and a disrespectful attitude toward yourself. When you're under reproach, your behavior shows it."

Joyce Meyer, American Author

Shame, Blame, Behavior, Self

"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."

Robbie Coltrane, Scottish Actor

Shame, Trouble, Want

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

Whoopi Goldberg, American Actress

Shame, Vote

"I can see your dirtypillows."

Stephen King, American Author

Shame, Truth, Regret, Happiness, Wisdom

Explore more quotes by Aspen Matis

"I wanted both things: strength in my independence and also this new desire. This felt like the beginning of a new kind of love."

Independence

"Because I feared I couldn't walk to Newton Centre without her, I needed to hike through desert, snow and woods alone.Childhood is a wilderness."

Independence

"Childhood is a wilderness."

Youth

"I wanted him to declare in shock how overlooked and underestimated I had been ever since I was a child. How lucky he felt to be the one to have discovered me, to have me. I wanted him to look at me like maybe I was magic."

Self-Worth

"I was no longer following a trail. I was learning to follow myself."

Independence

"But the truth was stranger than an aimless road, it always was."

Truth

"Absolutely devout in her complete care of my body, she had only taught me to be weak and voiceless. But I had unlearned that lesson. Our enmeshment no longer felt to me like proof of love. I was no longer willing to permit this silencing. Helplessness didn't have to be my identity, I wasn't condemned to it. I was willing-able-to change. Our enmeshment had been enabled by my belief that I needed her to help me, to take care of things for me-and to save me-but, back in the home where I'd learned this helplessness, I found I no longer felt that I was trapped in it."

Empowerment

"I wrote through darkness, vividly seeing: my passivity was not a crime; my desire to trust was not a flaw."

Healing

"I saw for the first time that I could stop giving people the power to make me feel disrespected. In my anger I began to see the absurdity of allowing this boy to shame me."

Empowerment

"I was going to mean what I said, to be direct and firm.I found my moleskin notebook and on the page behind the pages addressed to Never-Never and my family-two unsent letters-I wrote: I am the director of my life."

Responsibility