Shadow Quotes

“the abyss you stare into and that stares back at you is your reflection in the mirror - we all have it - that shadow self - that dark heart...”
― john Geddes, A Familiar Rain

“Sometime the witch hunting takes on atrocious dimensions — the Nazi persecution of Jews, the Salem witch trials, the Ku Klux Klan scapegoating of blacks. Notice, however, that in all such cases the persecutor hates the persecuted for precisely those traits that the persecutor displays with a glaringly uncivilized fury. At other times, the witch hunt appears in less terrifying proportions—the cold war fear of a "Commie under every bed," for instance. And often, it appears in comic form—the interminable gossip about everybody else that tells you much more about the gossiper than about the object of gossip. But all of these are instances of individuals desperate to prove that their own shadows belong to other people.

Many men and women will launch into tirades about how disgusting homosexuals are. Despite how decent and rational they otherwise try to behave, they find themselves seized with a loathing of any homosexual, and in an emotional outrage will advocate such things as suspending gay civil rights (or worse). But why does such an individual hate homosexuals so passionately? Oddly, he doesn’t hate the homosexual because he is homosexual; he hates him because he sees in the homosexual what he secretly fears he himself might become. He is most uncomfortable with his own natural, unavoidable, but minor homosexual tendencies, and so projects them. He thus comes to hate the homosexual inclinations in other people—but only because he first hates them in himself.

And so, in one form or another, the witch hunt goes. We hate people "because," we say, they are dirty, stupid, perverted, immoral.... They might be exactly what we say they are. Or they might not. That is totally irrelevent, however, because we hate them only if we ourselves unknowingly possess the despised traits ascribed to them. We hate them because they are a constant reminder of aspects of ourselves that we are loathe to admit.
We are starting to see an important indicator of projection. Those items in the environment (people or things) that strongly affect us instead of just informing us are usually our own projections. Items that bother us, upset us, repulse us, or at the other extreme, attract us, compel us, obsess us—these are usually reflections of the shadow. As an old proverb has it,

I looked, and looked, and this I came to see:
That what I thought was you and you,
Was really me and me.”
― Ken Wilber, No Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth

“A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“it was like trying to see a shadow in the dark.”
― Melissa Andrea, Flutter

“Technically, the weight of pain is the weight of shadow.”
― Carl Phillips, The Rest of Love

“There are no shadows in darkness. Shadows are created by light, and only exist in the presence of light. Refusing to acknowledge our shadow leads us to deny the presence of light in us.”
― Franco Santoro

“I have a message for your daughter,” said Cale. “I am bound to her with cables that not even God can break. One day, if there is a soft breeze on her cheek, it may be my breath; one night, if the cool wind plays with her hair, it may be my shadow passing by.”
And with this terrible threat he faced forward and the procession started once more. In less than a minute they were gone. In her shady room Arbell Swan-Neck stood white and cold as alabaster.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“I am you, Umasi, and I am weak." the shadow spun around and began walking away. "In the end, either you will conquer me…or I will conquer you.”
― Isamu Fukui, Origins

“MINISTER: All he has done is to find some means of bewitching the intelligence. He has only induced a radical suspension of disbelief. As in the early days of the cinema, all the citizens are jumping through the screen to lay their hands on the naked lady in the bathtub!
AMBASSADOR: And yet, in fact, their fingers touch flesh.
MINISTER: They believe they do. Yet all they touch is substantial shadow.
AMBASSADOR: And what a beautiful definition of flesh! You know I am only substantial shadow, Minister, but if you cut me, I bleed. Touch me, I palpitate!”
― Angela Carter, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

“What’s an “Animus”?’ asked Mad Dog.

Literally, it means “animating spirit” – that’s the essence of your core being, the spirit that defines you as a person,' answered Yazuki. 'But it can also mean “animosity” which is why the animal shadows only usually come out in confrontational situations. For centuries, Ninja have looked to the earth for inspiration in ways to live and fight. This is why you see us all giving off animal shadows. We each study the species that mean most to us. We each have an “Animus” that is unique...”
― Jane Prowse, The Revenge of Praying Mantis

“There was nothing the matter out there. It was in here, with me.

I decided I'd better go to work, maybe that would exorcise me. I fled from the room almost as though it were haunted. It was too late to stop off at a breakfast counter now. I didn't want any, anyway. My stomach kept giving little quivers. In the end I didn't go to work, either. I couldn't, I wouldn't have been any good. I telephoned in that I was too ill to come, and it was no idle excuse, even though I was upright on my two legs.

I roamed around the rest of the day in the sunshine. Wherever the sunshine was the brightest, I sought and stayed in that place, and when it moved on I moved with it. I couldn't get it bright enough or strong enough. I avoided the shade, I edged away from it, even the slight shade of an awning or of a tree.

And yet the sunshine didn't warm me. Where others mopped their brows and moved out of it, I stayed - and remained cold inside. And the shade was winning the battle as the hours lengthened. It outlasted the sun. The sun weakened and died; the shade deepened and spread. Night was coming on, the time of dreams, the enemy. ("Nightmare")”
― Cornell Woolrich, Baker's Dozen: 13 Short Mystery Novels

“In the dark, where do shadows go?”
― Orson Scott Card

“For Carter, it was as if the ghosts of Watergate stalked the halls of the White House. As with most ghosts, he wasn't sure they existed, where they were or how to exorcise them.”
― Bob Woodward, Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate