carolyn

“But he played music so loudly he could not hear his pain. He stunted his growth beneath a bass that decorated his aura and lyrics that hardened the glass parts of him. He was indeed an autumn leaf dipped in concrete. He wanted sound, any sound but his own thoughts. Ears that needed songs louder than the mind were ears afraid of what they might hear inside.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, A Happy Ghost

“Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion. Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast-- at her, the child of honorable parents--at her, who had once been innocent---as the figure, the body, the reality of sin.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“George listened to the radio and wondered whether that dear child Nancy would allow him to give her a fur coat. She was very proud, he knew. He didn't want to offend her. Still, she had complained of the cold. That tweed coat of hers was a cheap affair; it didn't keep the cold out. He could put it so that she wouldn't mind, perhaps...
They must have another evening out soon. It was a pleasure to take a girl like that to a smart restaurant. He could see several young fellows were envying him. She was uncommonly pretty. And she liked him. To her, as she had told him, he didn't seem a bit old.
He looked up and caught his wife's eye. He felt suddenly guilty, which annoyed him. What a narrow-minded, suspicious woman Maria was! She grudged him any little bit of happiness.
He switched off the radio and went to bed.”
― Agatha Christie, The Case of the Middle-Aged Wife - a Parker Pyne Short Story

“[The ego] cannot tell the difference between an event and its reaction to that event. Every ego is a matter of selective perception and distorted interpretation. Only through awareness—not through thinking—can you differentiate between fact and opinion. Only through awareness are you able to see: There is the situation and here is the anger I feel about it, and then realize there are other ways of approaching the situation, other ways of seeing it and dealing with it.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose