Shame

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Decameron (1353)

  Although Titus was ashamed to consent to this, namely, that Sophronia should become his wife, and on this account held out yet awhile, nevertheless, love on the one hand drawing him and Gisippus his exhortations on the other urging him, he said, 'Look you, Gisippus, I know not which I can say I do most, my pleasure or thine, in doing that whereof thou prayest me and which thou tellest me is so pleasing to thee, and since thy generosity is such that it overcometh my just shame, I will e'en do it; but of this thou mayst be assured that I do it as one who knoweth himself to receive of thee, not only the beloved lady, but with her his life. The Gods grant, an it be possible, that I may yet be able to show thee, for thine honour and thy weal, how grateful to me is that which thou, more pitiful for me than I for myself, dost for me!' These things said, 'Titus,' quoth Gisippus, 'in this matter, an we would have it take effect, meseemeth this course is to be held. As thou knowest, Sophronia, after long treaty between my kinsfolk and hers, is become my affianced bride; wherefore, should I now go about to say that I will not have her to wife, a sore scandal would ensue thereof and I should anger both her kinsfolk and mine own. Of this, indeed, I should reck nothing, an I saw that she was thereby to become thine; but I misdoubt me that, an I renounce her at this point, her kinsfolk will straightway give her to another, who belike will not be thyself, and so wilt thou have lost that which I shall not have gained. Wherefore meseemeth well, an thou be content, that I follow on with that which I have begun and bring her home as mine and hold the nuptials, and thou mayst after, as we shall know how to contrive, privily lie with her as with thy wife. Then, in due place and season, we will make manifest the fact, which, if it please them not, will still be done and they must perforce be content, being unable to go back upon it.'

• From Little Women (1868)

  She very soon discovered that there is a charm about fine clothes which attracts a certain class of people and secures their respect. Several young ladies, who had taken no notice of her before, were very affectionate all of a sudden. Several young gentlemen, who had only stared at her at the other party, now not only stared, but asked to be introduced, and said all manner of foolish but agreeable things to her, and several old ladies, who sat on the sofas, and criticized the rest of the party, inquired who she was with an air of interest. She heard Mrs. Moffat reply to one of them... "Daisy March—father a colonel in the army—one of our first families, but reverses of fortune, you know; intimate friends of the Laurences; sweet creature, I assure you; my Ned is quite wild about her." "Dear me!" said the old lady, putting up her glass for another observation of Meg, who tried to look as if she had not heard and been rather shocked at Mrs. Moffat's fibs. The 'queer feeling' did not pass away, but she imagined herself acting the new part of fine lady and so got on pretty well, though the tight dress gave her a side-ache, the train kept getting under her feet, and she was in constant fear lest her earrings should fly off and get lost or broken. She was flirting her fan and laughing at the feeble jokes of a young gentleman who tried to be witty, when she suddenly stopped laughing and looked confused, for just opposite, she saw Laurie. He was staring at her with undisguised surprise, and disapproval also, she thought, for though he bowed and smiled, yet something in his honest eyes made her blush and wish she had her old dress on. To complete her confusion, she saw Belle nudge Annie, and both glance from her to Laurie, who, she was happy to see, looked unusually boyish and shy. "Silly creatures, to put such thoughts into my head. I won't care for it, or let it change me a bit," thought Meg, and rustled across the room to shake hands with her friend. "I'm glad you came, I was afraid you wouldn't." she said, with her most grown-up air. "Jo wanted me to come, and tell her how you looked, so I did," answered Laurie, without turning his eyes upon her, though he half smiled at her maternal tone. "What shall you tell her?" asked Meg, full of curiosity to know his opinion of her, yet feeling ill at ease with him for the first time. "I shall say I didn't know you, for you look so grown-up and unlike yourself, I'm quite afraid of you," he said, fumbling at his glove button. "How absurd of you! The girls dressed me up for fun, and I rather like it. Wouldn't Jo stare if she saw me?" said Meg, bent on making him say whether he thought her improved or not.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  When, then, we ask why a crime was done, we believe it not, unless it appear that there might have been some desire of obtaining some of those which we called lower goods, or a fear of losing them. For they are beautiful and comely; although compared with those higher and beatific goods, they be abject and low. A man hath murdered another; why? he loved his wife or his estate; or would rob for his own livelihood; or feared to lose some such things by him; or, wronged, was on fire to be revenged. Would any commit murder upon no cause, delighted simply in murdering? who would believe it? for as for that furious and savage man, of whom it is said that he was gratuitously evil and cruel, yet is the cause assigned; “lest” (saith he) “through idleness hand or heart should grow inactive.” And to what end? that, through that practice of guilt, he might, having taken the city, attain to honours, empire, riches, and be freed from fear of the laws, and his embarrassments from domestic needs, and consciousness of villainies. So then, not even Catiline himself loved his own villainies, but something else, for whose sake he did them. What then did wretched I so love in thee, thou theft of mine, thou deed of darkness, in that sixteenth year of my age? Lovely thou wert not, because thou wert theft. But art thou any thing, that thus I speak to thee? Fair were the pears we stole, because they were Thy creation, Thou fairest of all, Creator of all, Thou good God; God, the sovereign good and my true good. Fair were those pears, but not them did my wretched soul desire; for I had store of better, and those I gathered, only that I might steal. For, when gathered, I flung them away, my only feast therein being my own sin, which I was pleased to enjoy. For if aught of those pears came within my mouth, what sweetened it was the sin. And now, O Lord my God, I enquire what in that theft delighted me; and behold it hath no loveliness; I mean not such loveliness as in justice and wisdom; nor such as is in the mind and memory, and senses, and animal life of man; nor yet as the stars are glorious and beautiful in their orbs; or the earth, or sea, full of embryo-life, replacing by its birth that which decayeth; nay, nor even that false and shadowy beauty which belongeth to deceiving vices.

• From Little Women (1868)

  Just before school closed, Jo appeared, wearing a grim expression as she stalked up to the desk, and delivered a letter from her mother, then collected Amy's property, and departed, carefully scraping the mud from her boots on the door mat, as if she shook the dust of the place off her feet. "Yes, you can have a vacation from school, but I want you to study a little every day with Beth," said Mrs. March that evening. "I don't approve of corporal punishment, especially for girls. I dislike Mr. Davis's manner of teaching and don't think the girls you associate with are doing you any good, so I shall ask your father's advice before I send you anywhere else." "That's good! I wish all the girls would leave, and spoil his old school. It's perfectly maddening to think of those lovely limes," sighed Amy, with the air of a martyr. "I am not sorry you lost them, for you broke the rules, and deserved some punishment for disobedience," was the severe reply, which rather disappointed the young lady, who expected nothing but sympathy. "Do you mean you are glad I was disgraced before the whole school?" cried Amy. "I should not have chosen that way of mending a fault," replied her mother, "but I'm not sure that it won't do you more good than a bolder method. You are getting to be rather conceited, my dear, and it is quite time you set about correcting it. You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long, even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty." "So it is!" cried Laurie, who was playing chess in a corner with Jo. "I knew a girl once, who had a really remarkable talent for music, and she didn't know it, never guessed what sweet little things she composed when she was alone, and wouldn't have believed it if anyone had told her." "I wish I'd known that nice girl. Maybe she would have helped me, I'm so stupid," said Beth, who stood beside him, listening eagerly. "You do know her, and she helps you better than anyone else could," answered Laurie, looking at her with such mischievous meaning in his merry black eyes that Beth suddenly turned very red, and hid her face in the sofa cushion, quite overcome by such an unexpected discovery. Jo let Laurie win the game to pay for that praise of her Beth, who could not be prevailed upon to play for them after her compliment. So Laurie did his best, and sang delightfully, being in a particularly lively humor, for to the Marches he seldom showed the moody side of his character.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  But now it spake very faintly. For on that side whither I had set my face, and whither I trembled to go, there appeared unto me the chaste dignity of Continency, serene, yet not relaxedly, gay, honestly alluring me to come and doubt not; and stretching forth to receive and embrace me, her holy hands full of multitudes of good examples: there were so many young men and maidens here, a multitude of youth and every age, grave widows and aged virgins; and Continence herself in all, not barren, but a fruitful mother of children of joys, by Thee her Husband, O Lord. And she smiled on me with a persuasive mockery, as would she say, “Canst not thou what these youths, what these maidens can? or can they either in themselves, and not rather in the Lord their God? The Lord their God gave me unto them. Why standest thou in thyself, and so standest not? cast thyself upon Him, fear not He will not withdraw Himself that thou shouldest fall; cast thyself fearlessly upon Him, He will receive, and will heal thee.” And I blushed exceedingly, for that I yet heard the muttering of those toys, and hung in suspense. And she again seemed to say, “Stop thine ears against those thy unclean members on the earth, that they may be mortified. They tell thee of delights, but not as doth the law of the Lord thy God.” This controversy in my heart was self against self only. But Alypius sitting close by my side, in silence waited the issue of my unwonted emotion. But when a deep consideration had from the secret bottom of my soul drawn together and heaped up all my misery in the sight of my heart; there arose a mighty storm, bringing a mighty shower of tears. Which that I might pour forth wholly, in its natural expressions, I rose from Alypius: solitude was suggested to me as fitter for the business of weeping; so I retired so far that even his presence could not be a burden to me. Thus was it then with me, and he perceived something of it; for something I suppose I had spoken, wherein the tones of my voice appeared choked with weeping, and so had risen up. He then remained where we were sitting, most extremely astonished. I cast myself down I know not how, under a certain fig-tree, giving full vent to my tears; and the floods of mine eyes gushed out an acceptable sacrifice to Thee. And, not indeed in these words, yet to this purpose, spake I much unto Thee: and Thou, O Lord, how long? how long, Lord, wilt Thou be angry for ever? Remember not our former iniquities, for I felt that I was held by them. I sent up these sorrowful words: How long, how long, “to-morrow, and tomorrow?” Why not now? why not is there this hour an end to my uncleanness?

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The lady, hearing her husband's speech, wept and denied herself willing to receive such a favour from him; but, for all her much denial, he would e'en have it be so. Accordingly, next morning, at daybreak, the lady, without overmuch adorning herself, repaired to Messer Ansaldo's house, with two of her serving-men before and a chamberwoman after her. Ansaldo, hearing that his mistress was come to him, marvelled sore and letting call the nigromancer, said to him, 'I will have thee see what a treasure thy skill hath gotten me.' Then, going to meet her, he received her with decency and reverence, without ensuing any disorderly appetite, and they entered all[454] into a goodly chamber, wherein was a great fire. There he caused set her a seat and said, 'Madam, I prithee, if the long love I have borne you merit any recompense, let it not irk you to discover to me the true cause which hath brought you hither at such an hour and in such company.' The lady, shamefast and well nigh with tears in her eyes, answered, 'Sir, neither love that I bear you nor plighted faith bringeth me hither, but the commandment of my husband, who, having more regard to the travails of your disorderly passion than to his honour and mine own, hath caused me come hither; and by his behest I am for this once disposed to do your every pleasure.' If Messer Ansaldo had marvelled at the sight of the lady, far more did he marvel, when he heard her words, and moved by Gilberto's generosity, his heat began to change to compassion and he said, 'God forbid, madam, an it be as you say, that I should be a marrer of his honour who hath compassion of my love; wherefore you shall, what while it is your pleasure to abide here, be no otherwise entreated than as you were my sister; and whenas it shall be agreeable to you, you are free to depart, so but you will render your husband, on my part, those thanks which you shall deem befitting unto courtesy such as his hath been and have me ever, in time to come, for brother and for servant.' [Footnote 454: _i.e._ Ansaldo, Dianora and the nigromancer.]

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  But why did I so much hate the Greek, which I studied as a boy? I do not yet fully know. For the Latin I loved; not what my first masters, but what the so-called grammarians taught me. For those first lessons, reading, writing and arithmetic, I thought as great a burden and penalty as any Greek. And yet whence was this too, but from the sin and vanity of this life, because I was flesh, and a breath that passeth away and cometh not again? For those first lessons were better certainly, because more certain; by them I obtained, and still retain, the power of reading what I find written, and myself writing what I will; whereas in the others, I was forced to learn the wanderings of one Aeneas, forgetful of my own, and to weep for dead Dido, because she killed herself for love; the while, with dry eyes, I endured my miserable self dying among these things, far from Thee, O God my life. For what more miserable than a miserable being who commiserates not himself; weeping the death of Dido for love to Aeneas, but weeping not his own death for want of love to Thee, O God. Thou light of my heart, Thou bread of my inmost soul, Thou Power who givest vigour to my mind, who quickenest my thoughts, I loved Thee not. I committed fornication against Thee, and all around me thus fornicating there echoed “Well done! well done!” for the friendship of this world is fornication against Thee; and “Well done! well done!” echoes on till one is ashamed not to he thus a man. And for all this I wept not, I who wept for Dido slain, and “seeking by the sword a stroke and wound extreme,” myself seeking the while a worse extreme, the extremest and lowest of Thy creatures, having forsaken Thee, earth passing into the earth. And if forbid to read all this, I was grieved that I might not read what grieved me. Madness like this is thought a higher and a richer learning, than that by which I learned to read and write.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  Theft is punished by Thy law, O Lord, and the law written in the hearts of men, which iniquity itself effaces not. For what thief will abide a thief? not even a rich thief, one stealing through want. Yet I lusted to thieve, and did it, compelled by no hunger, nor poverty, but through a cloyedness of well-doing, and a pamperedness of iniquity. For I stole that, of which I had enough, and much better. Nor cared I to enjoy what I stole, but joyed in the theft and sin itself. A pear tree there was near our vineyard, laden with fruit, tempting neither for colour nor taste. To shake and rob this, some lewd young fellows of us went, late one night (having according to our pestilent custom prolonged our sports in the streets till then), and took huge loads, not for our eating, but to fling to the very hogs, having only tasted them. And this, but to do what we liked only, because it was misliked. Behold my heart, O God, behold my heart, which Thou hadst pity upon in the bottom of the bottomless pit. Now, behold, let my heart tell Thee what it sought there, that I should be gratuitously evil, having no temptation to ill, but the ill itself. It was foul, and I loved it; I loved to perish, I loved mine own fault, not that for which I was faulty, but my fault itself. Foul soul, falling from Thy firmament to utter destruction; not seeking aught through the shame, but the shame itself! For there is an attractiveness in beautiful bodies, in gold and silver, and all things; and in bodily touch, sympathy hath much influence, and each other sense hath his proper object answerably tempered. Wordly honour hath also its grace, and the power of overcoming, and of mastery; whence springs also the thirst of revenge. But yet, to obtain all these, we may not depart from Thee, O Lord, nor decline from Thy law. The life also which here we live hath its own enchantment, through a certain proportion of its own, and a correspondence with all things beautiful here below. Human friendship also is endeared with a sweet tie, by reason of the unity formed of many souls. Upon occasion of all these, and the like, is sin committed, while through an immoderate inclination towards these goods of the lowest order, the better and higher are forsaken,—Thou, our Lord God, Thy truth, and Thy law. For these lower things have their delights, but not like my God, who made all things; for in Him doth the righteous delight, and He is the joy of the upright in heart.

• From Another Country (1962)

  At least, he can read and write.” “I should think,” said Cass, “that that would disqualify him.” She took each of them by one arm and they stood together in the darkening window, staring out at the highway and the shining water. “What a great difference there is,” she said, “between dreaming of something and dealing with it!” Neither Vivaldo nor Ingram spoke. Cass turned to Ingram and, in a voice he had never heard her use before, wistful and desirous, she asked, “Are you working on something new, Mr. Ingram? I hope you are.” And his voice seemed, oddly, to respond to hers. They might have been calling each other across that breadth of water, seeking for each other as the darkness relentlessly fell. “Yes,” he said, “I am, it’s a new novel, it’s a love story.” “A love story!” she said. Then, “And where does it take place?” “Oh, here in the city. Now.” There was a silence. Vivaldo felt her small hand, under his elbow, tighten. “I’m looking forward to reading it,” she said, “very much.” “Not more,” he said, “than I am looking forward to finishing it and having it read, especially, if I may say so, by you.” She turned her face to Ingram, and he could not see her smile but he could feel it. “Thank you,” she said. She turned to the window again and she sighed. “I suppose I must get back to my physicists.” They watched the street lamps click on. “I’m going to have a drink,” Cass said. “Will anyone join me?” “Sure,” said Vivaldo. They walked to the bar. Richard, Ellis, and Loring were sitting on the sofa. Miss Wales and Mrs. Ellis were standing at the bar. Ida was not in the room. “Excuse me,” said Vivaldo. “I think somebody’s in there!” cried Miss Wales. He walked down the hall, but did not reach the bathroom. She was sitting in the bedroom, among all the coats and hats, perfectly still. “Ida—?” Her hands were folded in her lap and she was staring at the floor. “Ida, why are you mad at me? I didn’t mean anything.” She looked up at him. Her eyes were full of tears. “Why did you have to say what you said? Everything was fine and I was so happy until you said that. You think I’m nothing but a whore. That’s the only reason you want to see me.” The tears dripped down her face. “All you white bastards are the same.” “Ida, I swear that isn’t true. I swear that isn’t true.” He dropped to one knee beside the bed and tried to take her hands in his. She turned her face away. “Honey, I’m in love with you. I got scared and I got jealous, but I swear I didn’t mean what you thought I meant, I didn’t, I couldn’t, I love you. Ida, please believe me. I love you.”

• From The Erotic Engine (2011)

  Nevertheless, it is clear that mainstream industry watchers and entrepreneurs understand that pornography and erotica are a key part of the early market for a new medium such as high-speed Internet for cellphones. Even if the numbers are somewhat overblown, sex is still big business, made even bigger by the underground trade. In the twenty-first century, the influence of the porn industry on new communications devices may still be dirty, but it is no longer a secret. It is part of the standard business model. The fact that it is still treated like a secret, even by analysts, journalists and media employees who have long understood that influence, indicates something beyond coyness or discomfort with the truth. People say it’s a secret even as they shout it from the mountaintop. Call it compartmentalization. Call it cognitive dissonance. Call it the interplay between subconscious and conscious motivators of technological progress. No matter how it is described, it seems as though people are very willing to utter the truth of the matter and then immediately file this knowledge away in the backs of their minds, separate from their day-to-day thoughts and experiences, stored away until the next occasion where it becomes necessary or desirable to once again disclose this same “dirty little secret.” Some people, of course, make a secret of pornography’s role for less psychologically complex, more practical reasons— reasons such as having unexpectedly ended up in a professional role that requires them to deal with pornography, but not much liking it, and suspecting that their wife and family would like it even less. “A lot of people will look at our content and say, ‘This is obscene, it’s disgusting.’ I think to us it’s just a business, you know?” a man I’ll call Andrew told me. Andrew is the vice-president of business development for a mobile infrastructure company in England. His company creates software tools that allow cable television and other media companies to get their material onto mobile devices. The company that employs him actually has two identities: one for the mainstream world and one for pornography. These two companies do the same job, using the same technology. They only differ in the nature of the content. “That’s just our business model,” Andrew said. “It’s based on the fact of the popularity of the adult market, and the brands that we feel are really going to drive traffic and sales. We are a technology company, and the fact is that our technology is being used more for the adult industry than anything else.”

• From Wild (2012)

  During the day I wrote stories; at night I waited tables and made out with one of the two men I was simultaneously not crossing the line with. We’d lived in New York only a month when Paul dropped out of graduate school, deciding he wanted to play guitar instead. Six months later, we left altogether, returning briefly to Minnesota before departing on a months-long working road trip all across the West, making a wide circle that included the Grand Canyon and Death Valley, Big Sur and San Francisco. At trip’s end in late spring, we landed in Portland and found restaurant jobs, staying first with my friend Lisa in her tiny apartment and then on a farm ten miles outside the city, where—in exchange for looking after a goat and a cat and a covey of exotic game hens—we got to live rent-free for the summer. We pulled the futon from our truck and slept on it in the living room under a big wide window that looked out over a filbert orchard. We took long walks and picked berries and made love. I can do this, I thought. I can be Paul’s wife. But again I was wrong. I could only be who it seemed I had to be. Only now more so. I didn’t even remember the woman I was before my life had split in two. Living in that little farmhouse on the edge of Portland, a few months past the second anniversary of my mother’s death, I wasn’t worried about crossing the line anymore. When Paul accepted a job offer in Minneapolis that required him to return to Minnesota midway through our exotic hen-sitting gig, I stayed behind in Oregon and fucked the ex-boyfriend of the woman who owned the exotic hens. I fucked a cook at the restaurant where I’d picked up a job waiting tables. I fucked a massage therapist who gave me a piece of banana cream pie and a free massage. All three of them over the span of five days. It seemed to me the way it must feel to people who cut themselves on purpose. Not pretty, but clean. Not good, but void of regret. I was trying to heal. Trying to get the bad out of my system so I could be good again. To cure me of myself. At summer’s end, when I returned to Minneapolis to live with Paul, I believed I had. I thought I was different, better, done. And I was for a time, sailing faithfully through the autumn and into the new year. Then I had another affair. I knew I was at the end of a line. I couldn’t bear myself any longer. I had to finally speak the words to Paul that would tear my life apart. Not that I didn’t love him. But that I had to be alone, though I didn’t know why. My mom had been dead three years.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Mr. Barry was saying, “We have been hearing the most wonderful things about your husband, Mrs. Silenski. I’ve read his book, and I must say”—he smiled his cordial smile, everything about him was held within decent bounds—“it’s a very remarkable achievement.” For an instant, Cass said nothing. She sipped her drink and watched his face, which was as smooth as a black jellybean. At first, she was tempted to dismiss the face as empty. But it was not empty; it was only that it was desperately trying to empty itself, decently, inward; an impossibility leading to God alone could guess what backing up of bile. Deep, deep behind the carefully hooded and noncommittal eyes, the jungle howled and lunged and bright dead birds lay scattered. He was like his wife, only he would never be able to step out of his iron corsets. She felt very sorry for him, then she trembled; he hated her; and somehow his hatred was connected with her barely conscious wish to have the ginger-colored boy on the floor make love to her. He hated her—therefore?—far more than Ida could, and was far more at the mercy of his hatred; which, from ceaseless trampling down, yearned to go upward, blowing up the world. But he could not afford to know this. She said, smiling, with stiff lips, “Thank you very much.” Mrs. Barry said, “You must be very proud of your husband.” Cass and Ida glanced briefly at each other, and Cass smiled and said, “Well, I’ve always been proud of him, really; none of this comes as any surprise to me.” Ida laughed. “That’s the truth. Cass thinks Richard can do no wrong.” “Not even when she catches him at it,” Ellis grinned. Then, “We’ve been together quite a lot lately, and he often speaks of what a happy man he is.” For some reason, this frightened her. She wondered when, and how often, Richard and Ellis met and what Richard really had to say. She swallowed her fear. “Blind faith,” she said, inanely, “I’ve got it,” and thought, God. She looked toward the dance floor. But that particular couple had vanished. “Your husband’s a lucky man,” said Mr. Barry. He looked at his wife, and reached for her hand. “So am I.” “Mr. Barry’s just become a part of our publicity department,” Ellis said. “We’re awfully proud to have him on board. And I’m sorry if I sound like I’m bragging—hell, I’m not sorry, I am bragging—but I think it represents a tremendous breakthrough in our pussyfooting, hidebound industry.” He grinned, and Mr. Barry smiled. “And hidebound so soon!” “It was hidebound the instant it was born,” said Mr. Nash, “just as your cinema industry was hidebound, and for the same reason. It immediately became the property of the banks—part of what you people quaintly call free enterprise, though God knows there’s nothing free about it, and nothing even remotely enterprising about the lot of you.”

• From Push (1996)

  (It's not like I want to see her but since she corned all this way here I will see her. She know better, I think, than to fuck wif me now.) I walk in dayroom. Mama quiet. Mama look bad, don't have to get close to know she smell bad. But then I look Mama and see my face, my body, my color—we bofe big, dark. Am I ugly? Is Mama ugly? I'm not sure. I know she got pussy odor and ugly brogan shoes like people make fun of and giant green dress that her legs come out of like black jelly elephant legs. I'm ashamed, this is my Mama. No matter how fly my braids is, how I grease my skin, scalp, no matter how many jew'ries, this is my mother. Mama don't look me in eye. She never did 'less she was shouting on me or telling me what to do —cook her something or go to store. She look down say, "Your daddy dead." She come out the house to tell me that! So what! I'm glad the nigger's dead. No, I don't mean that, but so what. Mama quiet. Mama say, "Carl had the AIDS virus.'' You know, so what, why you telling me. Then oh! No! Oh no, I get all squozen inside. Carl fuckes me. I could be done have it. Abdul could be—oh no, I can't even say nuffin'. A long time I don't say nuffin', jus' look at Mama. This what I come out of? Like Abdul and Little Mongo come out of me. If she ever said a kind word to me I don't remember it. Sixteen years I live in her house without knowing how to read. Since I was little her husband fuck me beat me. My daddy. I want to hate him— but it's funny I, he, give me the only good thing in my life aside from Ms Rain, ABCs, and girls at school; Abdul come from him, my son, my brother. But Mama give me to him. This my mother. Carl come in the night, take food, what money they is, fuck us bofe. Something cross my mind now. Man rape Celie turn out not to be her daddy. "Mama?" She look over where I'm at. ʻYo' huzbn, Carl, my real daddy?" I ask. "What chu mean?" "Carl, was he my real daddy? Was you married to him for real?" "He your daddy, couldn't no one else be your daddy. I was with him since since I was sixteen. I never been with nobody else. We not married though, he got a wife though, a real wife, purty light-skin woman he got two kids by." Hmmm, they got special kinda AIDS for yellow bitches? Mama! Thought jus' now hit me, don't know why, it the most obvious—do Mama got it? "You got it?" I ask. "No." "How you know?"

• From Wild (2012)

  When Paul accepted a job offer in Minneapolis that required him to return to Minnesota midway through our exotic hen-sitting gig, I stayed behind in Oregon and fucked the ex-boyfriend of the woman who owned the exotic hens. I fucked a cook at the restaurant where I'd picked up a job waiting tables. I fucked a massage therapist who gave me a piece of banana cream pie and a free massage. All three of them over the span of five days. It seemed to me the way it must feel to people who cut themselves on purpose. Not pretty, but clean. Not good, but void of regret. I was trying to heal. Trying to get the bad out of my system so I could be good again. To cure me of myself.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  This was the world at whose gate unhappy I lay in my boyhood; this the stage where I had feared more to commit a barbarism, than having committed one, to envy those who had not. These things I speak and confess to Thee, my God; for which I had praise from them, whom I then thought it all virtue to please. For I saw not the abyss of vileness, wherein I was cast away from Thine eyes. Before them what more foul than I was already, displeasing even such as myself? with innumerable lies deceiving my tutor, my masters, my parents, from love of play, eagerness to see vain shows and restlessness to imitate them! Thefts also I committed, from my parents’ cellar and table, enslaved by greediness, or that I might have to give to boys, who sold me their play, which all the while they liked no less than I. In this play, too, I often sought unfair conquests, conquered myself meanwhile by vain desire of preeminence. And what could I so ill endure, or, when I detected it, upbraided I so fiercely, as that I was doing to others? and for which if, detected, I was upbraided, I chose rather to quarrel than to yield. And is this the innocence of boyhood? Not so, Lord, not so; I cry Thy mercy, my God. For these very sins, as riper years succeed, these very sins are transferred from tutors and masters, from nuts and balls and sparrows, to magistrates and kings, to gold and manors and slaves, just as severer punishments displace the cane. It was the low stature then of childhood which Thou our King didst commend as an emblem of lowliness, when Thou saidst, Of such is the kingdom of heaven.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  For this space of nine years (from my nineteenth year to my eight-and-twentieth) we lived seduced and seducing, deceived and deceiving, in divers lusts; openly, by sciences which they call liberal; secretly, with a false-named religion; here proud, there superstitious, every where vain. Here, hunting after the emptiness of popular praise, down even to theatrical applauses, and poetic prizes, and strifes for grassy garlands, and the follies of shows, and the intemperance of desires. There, desiring to be cleansed from these defilements, by carrying food to those who were called “elect” and “holy,” out of which, in the workhouse of their stomachs, they should forge for us Angels and Gods, by whom we might be cleansed. These things did I follow, and practise with my friends, deceived by me, and with me. Let the arrogant mock me, and such as have not been, to their soul’s health, stricken and cast down by Thee, O my God; but I would still confess to Thee mine own shame in Thy praise. Suffer me, I beseech Thee, and give me grace to go over in my present remembrance the wanderings of my forepassed time, and to offer unto Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving. For what am I to myself without Thee, but a guide to mine own downfall? or what am I even at the best, but an infant sucking the milk Thou givest, and feeding upon Thee, the food that perisheth not? But what sort of man is any man, seeing he is but a man? Let now the strong and the mighty laugh at us, but let us poor and needy confess unto Thee. In those years I taught rhetoric, and, overcome by cupidity, made sale of a loquacity to overcome by. Yet I preferred (Lord, Thou knowest) honest scholars (as they are accounted), and these I, without artifice, taught artifices, not to be practised against the life of the guiltless, though sometimes for the life of the guilty. And Thou, O God, from afar perceivedst me stumbling in that slippery course, and amid much smoke sending out some sparks of faithfulness, which I showed in that my guidance of such as loved vanity, and sought after leasing, myself their companion. In those years I had one,—not in that which is called lawful marriage, but whom I had found out in a wayward passion, void of understanding; yet but one, remaining faithful even to her; in whom I in my own case experienced what difference there is betwixt the self-restraint of the marriage-covenant, for the sake of issue, and the bargain of a lustful love, where children are born against their parents’ will, although, once born, they constrain love.

• From Another Country (1962)

  And I thought so, too, that it was a kind of dirty trick for life to play on me, for me to like you better than I liked him. And, after all, the chances of its lasting were just about equal, only with him, if I played it right, I might have something to show for it when it was all over. And he was smart, he didn’t bug me about it, he said, Sure, he wanted me but he was going to help me, regardless, and the one thing had nothing to do with the other. And he did—he was very nice to me, in his way, he was as good as his word, he was nicer to me than anyone had ever been before. He used to take me out to dinner, to places where nobody would know him or where it wouldn’t matter if they did. A lot of the time we went up to Harlem, or if he knew I was sitting in somewhere, he’d drop in. He didn’t seem to be trying to hype me, not even when he talked about his wife and his kids—you know? He sounded as though he really was lonely. And, after all, I owed him a lot—and—it was nice to be treated that way and to know the cat had enough money to take you anywhere, and—ah! well, it started, I guess I’d always known it was going to start, and then, once it started, I didn’t think I could stand it but I didn’t know how to stop it. Because it’s one thing for a man to be doing all these things for you while you’re not having an affair with him and it’s another thing for him to be doing them after you’ve stopped having an affair with him. And I had to go on, I had to get up there on top, where maybe I could begin to breathe. But I saw why he’d never been upset about you. He really is smart. He was glad I was with you, he told me so; he was glad I had another boy friend because it made it easier for him. It meant I wouldn’t make any scenes, I wouldn’t think I’d fallen in love with him. It gave him another kind of power over me in a way because he knew that I was afraid of your finding out and the more afraid I got, the harder it was to refuse him. Do you understand that?” “Yes,” he said, slowly, “I think I understand that.” They stared at each other. She dropped her eyes. “But, you know,” she said, slowly, “I think you knew all the time.” He said nothing.

• From Another Country (1962)

  They gained the street, she feeling limp and frightened. Ellis put her into a cab. The cab was driven by a young Puerto Rican. “Good night, Mrs. Silenski,” Ellis said, and gave her his wet, hard hand. “Please give Richard my best, and tell him I’ll be calling him in a couple of days.” “Yes, I’ll tell him. Thank you. Good night.” He was gone, and she was alone in the cab, behind the unspeaking shoulders of the Puerto Rican. Idly, she sought out his face in the glass, then looked down, lighting a cigarette. The cab began to move. She did not look out. She sat huddled in the darkness, burning with a curious kind of shame. She was not ashamed—was she?—of anything she had done; but she was ashamed, as it were in anticipation, of what she might, now, helplessly, find herself doing. She had been using Ida and Vivaldo as smoke screens to cover her affair with Eric: why should not Ida use her , then, to cover from Vivaldo her assignation with Ellis? She had silenced them , in relation to Richard—now she was silenced, in relation to Vivaldo. She smiled, but the smoke she inhaled was bitter. When she had been safe and respectable, so had the world been safe and respectable; now the entire world was bitter with deceit and danger and loss; and which was the greater illusion? She was uncomfortably aware of the driver, his shoulders, his untried face, his color, and his soft, dark eyes. He glanced at her from time to time in the mirror—after all, she had glanced at him first; and her mood, perhaps, had set up a tension between them, a sexual tension. She thought, again, unwillingly, of the ginger-colored boy on the dance floor. And she knew (as though her mind, for a moment, were a clear pool, and she saw straight down into its depths) that, yes, yes, had he touched her, had he insisted, he could have had his way, she would have been glad. She would have been glad to know his body, even though the body might be all that she could know. Eric’s entrance into her, her fall from—grace?—had left her prey to ambiguities whose power she had never glimpsed before. Richard had been her protection, not only against the evil in the world, but also against the wilderness of herself. And now she would never be protected again. She tried to feel jubilant about this. But she did not feel jubilant. She felt frightened and bewildered. The driver coughed.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  She pointed out that I was not spending very much of my spare time in the house (true) and that I didn’t really want to be there (also true, even if I couldn’t admit it to myself at the time). She stopped frequently during this tirade and asked Lisa to tune in and confirm if what she was getting from Spirit was correct. Lisa was only too happy to do this. The look on her face was one I was familiar with because I used to look like that, too. I used to feel that Limori approved of me and loved me and valued my clarity and my service to her and to God. Finally, after being chastised and accused of failing God for an hour or so, I was released and told to think about what choices I wanted to make (i.e., serving the Light or serving the Dark Side). She instructed me to help Alice prepare dinner. “What can I do to get myself out of this mess?” I thought as I walked into the kitchen. “I have been an utter failure about getting rid of my own fear and now it’s coming home to roost. I have failed God and I have failed Limori.” I felt as useless and small as I have ever felt. Alice, who had heard this whole episode from the kitchen, didn’t refer to it as I joined her, but asked me to help her set the table for dinner and prepare the meal. She breaded a piece of fish and put it in the oven to bake, while I washed some dishes in the sink. My back was to the oven as I looked out the kitchen window with my hands in warm, soapy water, wishing I were anywhere but here. I wanted to cry. Tears were surging to my eyes and a lump grew in my throat with every breath, but breaking down would only have brought another shit-storm of abuse down on my head, so I swallowed hard and concentrated on what I was doing. Suddenly there was a loud crackling noise. Alice and I turned to look at one another, eyes wide with surprise. Neither of us knew what the noise was or where it had come from. “What was that?” Limori called from the living room. “I don’t know,” Alice called back. Limori and Lisa appeared in the doorway to the kitchen and the four of us stood around looking left and right, trying to figure out the origin of such a strange noise. “The fish,” Alice said, and she walked over and opened the oven door. Sure enough, the plate under the large piece of fish had splintered into a dozen or more shards. There was a pause while we all took this in and then Limori looked at me, her eyes shooting daggers. “This is your doing.” I just stared at her, baffled and paralyzed. “Your anger. Your anger caused this.

• From Little Women (1868)

  Sallie Moffat renewed her friendship, was always running out for a dish of gossip at the little house, or inviting 'that poor dear' to come in and spend the day at the big house. It was pleasant, for in dull weather Meg often felt lonely. All were busy at home, John absent till night, and nothing to do but sew, or read, or potter about. So it naturally fell out that Meg got into the way of gadding and gossiping with her friend. Seeing Sallie's pretty things made her long for such, and pity herself because she had not got them. Sallie was very kind, and often offered her the coveted trifles, but Meg declined them, knowing that John wouldn't like it, and then this foolish little woman went and did what John disliked even worse. She knew her husband's income, and she loved to feel that he trusted her, not only with his happiness, but what some men seem to value more—his money. She knew where it was, was free to take what she liked, and all he asked was that she should keep account of every penny, pay bills once a month, and remember that she was a poor man's wife. Till now she had done well, been prudent and exact, kept her little account books neatly, and showed them to him monthly without fear. But that autumn the serpent got into Meg's paradise, and tempted her like many a modern Eve, not with apples, but with dress. Meg didn't like to be pitied and made to feel poor. It irritated her, but she was ashamed to confess it, and now and then she tried to console herself by buying something pretty, so that Sallie needn't think she had to economize. She always felt wicked after it, for the pretty things were seldom necessaries, but then they cost so little, it wasn't worth worrying about, so the trifles increased unconsciously, and in the shopping excursions she was no longer a passive looker-on. But the trifles cost more than one would imagine, and when she cast up her accounts at the end of the month the sum total rather scared her. John was busy that month and left the bills to her, the next month he was absent, but the third he had a grand quarterly settling up, and Meg never forgot it. A few days before she had done a dreadful thing, and it weighed upon her conscience. Sallie had been buying silks, and Meg longed for a new one, just a handsome light one for parties, her black silk was so common, and thin things for evening wear were only proper for girls. Aunt March usually gave the sisters a present of twenty-five dollars apiece at New Year's. That was only a month to wait, and here was a lovely violet silk going at a bargain, and she had the money, if she only dared to take it.