#embarrassment

The weekend break had begun with the usual resentment and had continued with half-repressed ill humour. It was, of course, his fault. He had been more ready to hurt his wife's feelings and deprive his daughter than inconvenience a pub bar full of strangers. He wished there could be one memory of his dead child which wasn't tainted with guilt and regret. ↗

— P.D. James

#fear #guilt #marriage #regret #marriage

I'm going to become the best-remembered artist of my generation by staying away from the party as often as possible. That way, people will remember me, not because I was great, but because I didn't cause them any later embarrassment. ↗

— Julian Cope

#artist #away #because #become #cause

They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper that would roar and dip its nose and carry you off to the world. A mere matter of falling, yet no one ever fell. It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were too frightened to be cowards. ↗

— Tim O'Brien

#embarrassment #shame #war #courage

Today self-consciousness no longer means anything but reflection on the ego as embarrassment, as realization of impotence: knowing that one is nothing. ↗

— Theodor Adorno

#ego #embarrassment #impotence #knowing #longer

But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling something, having once existed, its effect is not to be done away with. ↗

— George Eliot

#done #each #effect #embarrassment #existed

I won't say there aren't any Harvard graduates who have never asserted a superior attitude. But they have done so to our great embarrassment and in no way represent the Harvard I know. ↗

— Derek Bok

#asserted #attitude #done #embarrassment #graduates

Irregular contact with doctors means many men fail to receive any preventive care for potentially life-threatening conditions. In addition, when men do seek care, embarrassment can often prevent them from openly discussing health concerns with their physicians. ↗

— Michael Crapo

#any #care #concerns #conditions #contact

Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labour, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#ants #armies #beings #capture #ceaselessly

You can imagine my embarrassment when I killed the wrong guy. ↗

— Joe Valachi

#guy #i #imagine #killed #wrong

Oh, a mermaid's comb. Heavy stuff, but safe enough as long as you don't use it around water. Or a busy highway. You're not planning to lure any young men to their doom, are you?" How embarrassing! I shook my head, blushing. ↗

— Polly Shulman

#mermaid-magic #business