Paul Auster Quotes

There was a sentence in your letter that struck me, “I wish I were far away from everything, I am the cause of all, and bring only sorrow to everybody, I alone have brought all this misery on myself and others.” These words struck me because that same feeling, just the same, not more nor less, is also on my conscience.

Guilt starts as a feeling of failure.

There was no way to laugh anymore, to love, to care, and there was a sense of guilt in having survived when others had been killed. I turned into a worse workaholic than I had already been by trying to work myself into the ground.

I’ve blamed her for all of this, for leaving, for ruining me. And maybe that was the seed of it, but from that one little seed grew this tumor of a flowering plant. And I’m the one who nurtures it. I water it. I care for it.I nibble from its poison berries. I let it wrap around my neck, choking the air right out of me. I’ve done that. All by myself. All to myself.

We can actually put the essence of neurosis in a single word: blaming - or damning.

There must be a reason that these bad things happen to me. I must be dysfunctional. So why would my dad leave? Why would he kill himself? Why would I be violated? And when you're 6-years-old, you can't comprehend that. But as you get much older in life, you begin to think what's wrong with me?

Grief is not as heavy as guilt, but it takes more away from you.

Guilt was its own prison.

The worst pain in the world is shame.

Guilt is anger directed at ourselves.

Guilt is really the reverse side of the coin of pride. Guilt aims at self-destruction, and pride aims at the destruction of others.

Guilt is a rope that wears thin.

Grief and guilt. A powerful combination. Guilt like a liquid, a thin liquor, seeping everywhere, informing everything, saturating the whole-corrosive, like seawater, scented with the rich stench of ordure and corruption, and carrying with it hard, abrasive shards of grief.

A lot of widows feel that they have betrayed their spouse by continuing to live. It's deranged thinking. I know that, but that doesn't stop you feeling it.

Victims always feel alone and helpless.

Sometimes my heart hurts so much, I beat it with my fists. I try to run. But you cannot run from this. It waits for you. Even when you think you have escaped it, it is there.

We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow.

If you wanted to torture me, you'd tie me down and force me to watch our first five videos.

My family made it through Hurricane Sandy. We have water, power, and a roof, but the survivor's guilt makes me want to hide. Sneak away from the brilliance of life. It shouts at me: 'Don't enjoy anything too much; people are suffering.' I feel childlike somehow.

People have pain - they do regrettable things, they feel shame, and shame equals pain.

Whenever we feel shame, it's a mark of some deep investment or deep internal struggle.

I have survivor's remorse.

Like Jesus, every human being has enough memories in his past to occupy his time and thoughts continually. It is not the remembrance of these incidents but the reliving of them that creates havoc in our souls.

I think I beat myself up more than anyone else.

I hit my head against the wall because I don't want to know all the terrible things that I know about. I don't want to feel all these wretched things, but they're in me already. If I don't get rid of them, I'm not ever going to feel anything else.