A Lie Someone Told You about Yourself Quotes

“(Dimly he senses this is somehow the point of the internet: to spread shame, but so broadly, so thinly, like a light coat of varnish, that we hardly notice it anymore, until we all just glow faintly with it.)”
― Peter Ho Davies, A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself

“Asking for sympathy is just another way of asking for permission.”
― Peter Ho Davies, A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself

“Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself,” according to Anaïs Nin (herself the author of several abortions). But what if it’s not a lie? And what if the someone is you?”
― Peter Ho Davies, A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself

“All the years of ritual—undressing and dressing, diaper changes, potty time, bath time, tooth brushing, reading, hugs and kisses—are so exhausting. If they don’t fall asleep beside him, whoever is on bedtime duty stumbles downstairs, announces wearily, “And that concludes today’s parenting.” Until the next day, and the next and the next. As if it were a curse and not a blessing. As if it really were forever.”
― Peter Ho Davies, A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself

“It won’t necessarily last, they know, but they cherish it all the more for that. You only know luck by its opposite.”
― Peter Ho Davies, A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself

“He’s long used to his parents’ disapproval—of grades, career choices, girlfriends. What’s new is that now they’re dealing with his disapproval. He’d always thought them good parents—loving, stable, involved—and still does. It’s their anxiety, their defensiveness, their guilt, after all these years, that shakes him. Will that be us? he asks his wife, but they both know the answer already.”
― Peter Ho Davies, A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself