Self Punishment Quotes

“You want to do the right thing," said Ramy, bullish. "You always do. But you think the right thing is martyrdom. You think if you suffer enough for whatever sins you've committed, then you're absolved."
"I do not-"
"That's why you took the fall for us that night. Every time you come up against something difficult, you just want to make it go away, and you think the way to do that is self-flagellation. You're obsessed with punishment. But that's not how this works, Birdie. You going to prison fixes nothing. You hanging from the gallows fixes nothing. The world's still broken. A war's still coming. The only way to properly make amends is to stop it, which you don't want to do, because really what this is about is your being afraid.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“The incest victim's need for self-punishment often leads her into self-abusive behaviors like alcoholism, drug abuse, or prostitution.”
― Susan Forward, Betrayal of Innocence: Incest and Its Devastation

“The walls that hold my prison pent soul closed with an eternal thud. A destructive bent blossomed in the desert of my ebbing passion. I am a lonely man with no skeleton key that will allow me to escape a static penitentiary and enter a world where joy reigns. My strangeness sentenced me forever to be alone. Stranded alone, I must bear the mental lashings associated with a penal life. My relegated daily vigil consists of dragging around ankle chains and enduring a penitence period hobbled to punitive labor. There is no relief in sight; no chance exists to receive a stay of execution from self-punishment arising from a criminal spree of failure. My crazed-eyed preoccupation is to stand on my tippy toes in a private cellblock and stare down at the starkness of my picked over bones.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“I'm too short. So, up on your toes. Lift someone up.”
― Skiaristw

“Every society produces its outcast. I am wickedly corrupt, the type of renegade spirit that other men fear. I am the natural rival of briefcases carrying corporate men whom brandish their patented leather bourgeois success. Carrying a money satchel to demonstrate economic success means little to me, especially if the only purpose of such public display of a purse is to pay homage to a chrome plated heart. I grew my hair out to exhibit independence from corporate America, but ultimately I answer only to a herculean self. I hear insalubrious cries of innocence, pleading lack of personal wrongdoing, but in my heart, I condemned myself for living a slipshod life filled with falsehoods. I conducted a show trial and found myself guilty of living selfishly. I deserve punishment for a wicked lifestyle, but self-punishment only operates to negate personal drive. I need to determine a reason to live and a find a means to move beyond a corrupt past.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“People are often punished by the realization of their dreams!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“And when he stared at the sum total of his crimes on the screen, it seemed to him that they didn't amount to a whole lot. He hadn't killed anyone. He looked again: there must be something missing. Nope. He'd done twenty years for crimes he hadn't committed.”
― Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked

“When you turn your own imagination into an enemy, it is called a conscience.”
― George Hammond