Obligation Guilt Quotes

“What else happened?' she asked, not because she was particularly interested, but because one must talk to one's mother when she came to visit one, however tired and dispirited one felt.”
― Monica Dickens, Mariana

“[On famous Nobel Laureate Niels Bohr]

[Niels] Bohr's sort of humor, use of parables and stories, tolerance, dependence on family, feelings of indebtedness, obligation, and guilt, and his sense of responsibility for science, community, and, ultimately, humankind in general, are common traits of the Jewish intellectual. So too is a well-fortified atheism. Bohr ended with no religious belief and a dislike of all religions that claimed to base their teachings on revelations.”
― Finn Aaserud, Love, Literature and the Quantum Atom: Niels Bohr's 1913 Trilogy Revisited

“Why do you think he [my father] didn't stay?' Jamie is sitting on a footstool in Wallace's studio up in the house's turret....'Why did he come here at all?'

'I don't know.' Wallace is at his easel....'I don't know him very well. We were never close like you and Marian. I think he meant to stay, but he got spooked.'...

'Spooked by what?'

...'It's only a guess, but I think he might not have liked the idea of owing us anything.'

'Why would he think he owed us?'

Wallace puts down his brush. 'You are a very dear boy.'

'Why?'

'It's a forgiving question, that's all.”
― Maggie Shipstead, Great Circle