Hidden Fears Quotes

Men fear most what they cannot see.

Fairytales work on two levels. On a conscious level, they are stories of true love and triumph and overcoming difficult odds and so are pleasurable to read. But they work on a deeper and symbolic level in that they play out our universal psychological dramas and hidden desires and fears.

As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men’s minds more seriously than what they see.

I put up a front to make people think I had all of this confidence in myself, which I didn't.

Has the dark shadow really disappeared? Or is it inside me, concealed, waiting for its chance to reappear? Like a clever thief hidden inside a house, breathing quietly, waiting until everyone’s asleep. I have looked deep inside myself, trying to detect something that might be there. But just as our consciousness is a maze, so too is our body. Everywhere you turn there’s darkness, and a blind spot. Everywhere you find silent hints, everywhere a surprise is waiting for you.

You musn’t be afraid of the dark.’ ‘I’m not,’ said Shadow. ‘I’m afraid of the people in the dark.

I don't know why, but there's always the part of you, the part that hides in the shadows protecting the self-destruct button, that doesn't ever want to leave the dark behind.

Everyone has an uncomfortable club in their bag.

How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves and the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are deep and real. Shouldn't they paralyze us? How is it we can survive them, at least for a little while? We drive a car, we teach a class. How is it no one sees how deeply afraid we were, last night, this morning? Is it something we all hide from each other, by mutual consent? Or do we share the same secret without knowing it? Wear the same disguise?

People fear their hidden selves, afraid that they will burst out.

Find out what you don't want to know about yourself, what you're afraid of.

We're not as materialistic and income-tax conscious as we think. At the moment our superstitions are tucked away, but come out sometimes in strange ways sex crimes, black masses.

The truths I shun follow me, mumbling.

Beware the dark pool at the bottom of our hearts. In its icy, black depths dwell strange and twisted creatures it is best not to disturb.

A good ground rule for writing in any genre is, start with a form, then undermine its confidence in itself. Ask what it's afraid of, what it's trying to hide - then write that.

Ghost stories ... tell us about things that lie hidden within all of us, and which lurk outside all around us.

I think that when somebody tells you something of value, a lot of the time there's this thing that happens, and I don't know if you find it, where they go exactly for the word or the moment or the thing that you were hoping they wouldn't notice, or inside didn't feel 100 percent secure about. If they point it out, then that really sends you the message of, "Okay, I was trying to override my own instincts about it, and I guess I shouldn't."

We all have insecurities, but some of us are better at covering them up.

Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared, even the people who seem to have it more or less together. They are much more like you than you would believe. So try not to compare your insides to their outsides.

We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.

Truth be told, most of us are faking our way through life. We pick only those battles we are sure to win, only those adventures we are sure to handle, only those beauties we are sure to rescue.

We fear that which we cannot see.

The darkness always teemed with unexplained sound - and yet he sometimes shook with fear lest the noises he heard subside and allow him to hear certain other fainter noises which he suspected were lurking behind them.

The unconscious sends all sorts of vapors, odd beings, terrors, and deluding images up into the mind - whether in dream, broad daylight, or insanity: for the human kingdom, beneath the floor of the comparatively neat little dwelling that we call our consciousness, goes down into unsuspected Aladdin caves.

No, no—there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the more I see in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. I don’t know what I don’t see—what I don’t fear!