Alison Lurie Quotes

Guilt is feeling bad about what you have done; shame is feeling bad about who you are - all it is, is muddling up things you have done with who you are.

It seems entirely possible to me that horrible things can be going on without us becoming horrible people.

An animal takes freely anything that it wishes: it commits no sin and is not held responsible for its action because it knows no better. But as soon as the idea of 'mine' and 'thine' has been imprinted upon our consciousness, then also the responsibility comes.

I feel it's important to show that one thing that you do doesn't define you as a human being. It doesn't mean there aren't ramifications or you shouldn't pay for that but its not who you are.

The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.

If the person does not feel guilt he is not in his own mind guilty and will not confess …. Confession in such a case can come only with duress.

Hardly any man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.

Although men are accused of not knowing their weakness, yet perhaps as few know their strength.

There is nothing in the whole frame of man which seems to me so unaccountable as that thing called conscience.

People don't think of themselves as evil.

The more power that we have, the less human we are.

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

Guilt is what separates humans from animals.

Every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know.

No one thinks that they're a monster. No one thinks that of themselves. Everyone has an earnest belief that it would be better if they were in power.

It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before—consequences that are hardly ever confined to ourselves. And it is best to fix our minds on that certainty, instead of considering what may be the elements of excuse for us.

Do not tell me you don’t know you’re pretty. If so, I’m about to lose all faith in mankind. You don’t want to be responsible for that.

Unless Christianity is wholly false, the perception of ourselves which we have in moments of shame must be the only true one.

When we hate someone we make them more powerfull than they are.

I will not have the power of nonviolence to be underestimated in order to cover my limitations or weaknesses.

I'm tired of hearing about innocent victims. It's fiction, If you live on this planet you're guilty, period, f*** you, next case, end of report. Your birth certificate is proof of guilt.

All men thirst to confess their crimes more than tired beasts thirst for water; but they naturally object to confessing them while other people, who have also committed the same crimes, sit by and laugh at them.

I do not consider myself a teddybear. Just to be clear, I don't feel sorry for myself.

You worry that we're becoming monsters. Merlin, we already were monsters. You didn't make us any worse.