Lena

“Toxic shame is unbearable and always necessitates a cover-up, a false self. Since one feels his true self is defective and flawed, one needs a false self that is not defective and flawed. Once one becomes a false self, one ceases to exist psychologically. To be a false self is to cease being an authentic human being. The process of false self formation is what Alice Miller calls “soul murder.” As a false self, one tries to be more than human or less than human.”
― John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Binds You

“Jeremy was young, but not so young. His mother's accident had taken care of that.”
― John Darnielle, Universal Harvester

“this is not reading the Bible as a book. It is using the Bible as a kind of Christian Ouija board.”
― Bart D. Ehrman, Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End

“Love has never been a popular movement. And no one's ever wanted, really, to be free. The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people. Otherwise, of course, you can despair. Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you've got to remember is what you're looking at is also you. Everyone you're looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster, you could be that cop. And you have to decide, in yourself, not to be.”
― James Baldwin