“What's the fun in standing in the outskirts of love and feeling superior? There's no shame in having got it wrong. Whereas its a shame when you don't even give yourself the chance of getting it right. Better to have loved and lost...”

“This was not guilt: guilt is what you feel when you have done something wrong. What I felt was shame: I was what was wrong.”

“Wicked people means people who have no love: therefore, they have no shame. They have the power to ask love because the don't need it: they have the power to offer it because they have none to give.”

“(You do not have to be shamed in my closeness. Family are the people who must never make you feel ashamed.)(You are wrong. Family are the people who must make you feel ashamed when you are deserving of shame.)(And you are deserving of shame?)(I am. I am trying to tell you.) 'We were stupid,' he said, 'because we believed in things.''Why is this stupid?''Because there are not things to believe in.'(Love?)(There is no love. Only the end of love.)(Goodness?)(Do not be a fool.)(God?)(If God exists, He is not to be believed in.)”

“Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

“Measure the hate you feel now, and the shame. That quantity is your capacity also to love and to feel joy and to have compassion.”