David Whyte Quotes

My first job, which I had to take when not more than fifteen, was assistant to a fruit peddler. It seemed all right to me until a little girl told me snootily, 'We never deal with peddler!' Thereupon I resigned, ashamed of what I was doing.

I've put up with more humiliation than I care to remember.

It is not the broken heart that kills, but broken pride, monseigneur.

If I had any dignity, that would have been humiliating.

I don't get embarrassed.

In falling over in heels while trying to look attractive, you don't just hurt your body, you bear the humiliation of injuring your very soul. Physical pain? Whatever, bring it on. But the humiliation? Oh, you have seen to the very weakest part of me.

My behavior is humiliating.

The flip side of humiliation is pride.

I never wanted anyone's pity.

I am a man whose mind has been ulcerated with a variety of embarrassments for 30 weary months.

I come home that morning, after I been fired, and stood outside my house with my new work shoes on. The shoes my mama paid a month's worth a light bill for. I guess that's when I understood what shame was and the color of it too. Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was. Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all night to pay for, white without a smudge or a speck a work-dirt on it.

It was less humiliating to admit crying because of your feet than because - because somebody had been amusing himself with you and your friends had forgotten you, and other people patronised you.

Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed, dignity never been photographed.

It was the emotion I hated the most of all emotions, shame.

What hurts people a lot is taking humiliation.

It's humiliating to have to explain your value.

Some were beggars, some were kings, and some were masters of the arts. But in their shame they're all the same, these men with broken hearts.

If you make a fool of yourself, you can do it with dignity, without taking your pants down. And if you do take your pants down, you can still do it with dignity.

I've spent my life being embarrassed.

I have deserved neither so much honor or so much disgrace.

Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity.

I mean, I haven't been around very long. I can't expect everyone to have seen 'The House Bunny'. Oh God. I am having such waves of internal embarrassment, which now I'm admitting on a tape recorder. This is so one of the things I should keep in my head.

I have a natural resistance to being humiliated.

Victims always feel alone and helpless.

I'm just like anyone. I cut and I bleed. And I embarass easily.