Suzanne Collins Quotes

I'm a bad person.

Do you absolutely despise me, Walter?" "No." He hesitated and his voice was strange. "I despise myself.

I hate the past - especially my own past.

Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It's the fear that we're not good enough.

I was tormented with guilt for years and years. In fact, it was so bad that if I didn't feel wrong, I didn't feel right!

We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are.

As a youth, I hated myself for not being good enough. All my inadequacies and failures, not being kind enough, generous or understanding enough, would assail me at night. It became a habit to be guilty and self castigating, not liking myself because I was unworthy... I really tortured myself.

Oh, Mr. Thornton, I am not good enough!' 'Not good enough! Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness.

Clearly something had gone wrong, badly, only I wasn't quite sure what—apart from knowing that I was responsible somehow, in the generalized miasma of shame and unworthiness and being-a-burden that never quite left me.

Guilt: I'm sorry. I made a mistake. Shame: I'm sorry. I am a mistake.

Shame is the shadow of love.

I'm awash in self-contempt!

You?' is all I can manage to choke out. 'Always me,' she replies softly, bashfully. 'Who else?

I mean, I felt terrible. And in the beginning, I mean, I was completely devastated. I mean, can you imagine the kind of guilt that you would feel, and the responsibility?

Doubt is the brother of shame.

I'm sorry my existence is not very noble or sublime.

There's so much guilt there attached to having a perfectly good life.

I have these accidents, these mistakes, these self-inflicted wounds, and then I tear my head to shreds about it for days.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

I constantly say things that I regret. I mortify myself constantly.

I feel bad for everyone I've gone out with.

I think I have a great deal of self-hatred, a profound feeling of fraudulence, of being detestable and evil. It's only a part of me, but it's there, and it's active.

I felt ashamed about everything. Me dropping out of high school, me not, you know, just not being beautiful enough. I just didn't feel like I was smart enough or beautiful enough, you know, for years.

Shame is such an intense emotion. It just can drive you.

I feel bad that I don't feel worse.