Closet Monster Quotes

As a child, I was aware that, at night, infrared vision would reveal monsters hiding in the bedroom closet only if they were warm-blooded. But everybody knows that your average bedroom monster is reptilian and cold-blooded.

I pity the woman who will love you when I am done. She will show up to your first date with a dustpan and broom, ready to pick up all the pieces I left you in. She will hear my name so often it will begin to dig holes in her. That is where doubt will grow. She will look at your neck, your thin hips, your mouth, wondering at the way I touched you. She will make you all the promises I did and some I never could. She will hear only the terrible stories. How I drank. How I lied. She will wonder (as I have) how someone as wonderful as you could love a monster like the woman who came before her. Still, she will compete with my ghost. She will understand why you do not look in the back of closets. Why you are afraid of what’s under the bed. She will know every corner of you is haunted by me.

I would read the Shel Silverstein poems, Dr. Seuss, and I noticed early on that poetry was something that just stuck in my head and I was replaying those rhymes and try to think of my own. In English, the only thing I wanted to do was poetry and all the other kids were like, "Oh, man. We have to write poems again?" and I would have a three-page long poem. I won a national poetry contest when I was in fourth grade for a poem called "Monster In My Closet.

Nothing compares to the fear that you’re becoming the monster in your closet.

Laying awake on my childhood bed, I heard the closet door open. I never realized the monster inside was real until it whispered, “I’ve been waiting for you.

I often heard people advise breathing through the mouth to avoid a stench, but I was of the well-considered opinion if I didn’t want it in my nostrils, I sure as hell didn’t want it in my mouth.

Nice one, Zoey. You did everything short of farting in there. Maybe if you see him again, you can tell him you have a yeast infection.

The monsters don't live in my closet or under my bed. They are a collection of thoughts inside my head.

She wanted to have him hold her and tell her all the demons were pretend, that there was no monster in her closet, that everything would be okay. But that was a lie. The demon was in her head, telling her she was too fat. She had to get the demon out. But she couldn't do it by herself.

I don’t fool you, do I? Those others”—he waved a vague hand to indicate their missing comrades—“they think I’m all that—but you know better, don’t you.” “Know what?” she’d asked. He leaned forward, smelling of beer and cigarettes. “You know I’m a fraud. I can feel the beast inside me, screaming to get out. And if I loose it, it will pull me up to greatness despite myself.” “So why not let it free?” She hadn’t been a werewolf then. The world had been a gentler place, the monsters safely in their closets, and she had been brave in her ignorance. His eyes were old and weary, his voice slurring a bit. “Because then everyone would see,” he told her. “See what?” “Me.

We're surrounded by people who don’t make that distinction. If you say to them ‘there’s a monster living in my closet, you can’t see him, but you gotta have faith that he’s there’ people would say ‘well that’s ridiculous, you’re out of you’re mind, you should be locked up’ but the same thing does not apply to a guy living on a cloud... We suspend our powers of logic.

Nothing compares to the fear that you’re becoming the monster in your closet. During

Some monsters disguise themselves so well you don’t realize that they’re monsters until it’s too late. You check all of the usual places: under the bed, in the closet, behind the shower curtain, around that suspicious, dark corner of your room. No, some monsters don’t look like monsters at all. But they are, have been, and always will be there.

Violet, this closet with all the creepy dolls, can I—” “Don’t touch my creepy doll collection, Leiza,” Violet says sharply. “Quit trying to get rid of all my favorite things.

A man couldn't do what he did. He's a monster." I laughed. "Ain't no monster. Monsters ain't real 'cept in kids' imaginations, under the beds, in the closets. We live in a world a' men and there ain't no good come out of tellin' them they monsters. Makes 'em think they ain't done nothin' wrong, that it's their nature and they can't do nothin' to change that. Callin' em a monster makes 'em something different from the rest of us, but they ain't. They just men, flesh and bone and blood.

I'm like any other kid; I've seen the monsters in the closet and under the bed. The only difference between me and other kids is...the monsters are afraid of me..." (Angel) Night School: A Dasheen "Angel" Vampire Hunter novel

The monsters aren’t always in the closet or under the bed. Sometimes they’re right in front of you, only everyone thinks they’re the good guys.

A human child believes all things are possible. How wonderful. How terrifying. Slowly, you are taught what you cannot have. What will not be possible. What you do not have to fear. There is no monster in the closet. You cannot fly. How relieving. How disappointing. But this is the world, isn't it? You believe it. You believe it so thoroughly that even when the box is lifted from around you, you continue to travel in circles no bigger than its walls...

As a little girl I was scared of monsters. My parents told me they didn't exist. How I wish they would have told me the whole truth. Monsters do exist; they're just not hiding in closets.

The monster is only scary while it is in the closet. Once in the light, you can see its many flaws and weaknesses. And often, we end up laughing, at what we shield our eyes from no more.

A closet isn't scary in the daytime, Maeve. It holds clothes, not monsters. Whatever is scaring you, bring it into the light. Its strength will fade.

But sometimes the monster in the closet was really just a worthless clown in a coma.

You either have a monster in your closet, or you are the monster in someone's closet.  There is nothing else.  That's the only rule in this fucked up game of life.

People think it's the monsters who do bad things, but it's not. It's people like us. All the monsters ever do is live in storybooks. Or in closets. It's the humans who destroy things. Life isn't black and white, James. It's all fucking gray.

Hey, nit squat! These are written by norms to scare norms. And do you know what the monsters and demons and rancid spirits are? Us, that’s what. You and me. We are the things that come to the norms in nightmares. The thing that lurks in the bell tower and bites out the throats of the choirboys—that’s you, Oly. And the thing in the closet that makes the babies scream in the dark before it sucks their last breath—that’s me. And the rustling in the brush and the strange piping cries that chill the spine on a deserted road at twilight—that’s the twins singing practice scales while they look for berries. Don't shake your head at me! These books teach me a lot. They don't scare me because they're about me. Turn the page.

Monsters were real, too. They didn’t live in our closets or hide under our beds. They squatted within us—coming out occasionally to destroy the things we loved—coming out to destroy us.

As exhausted as I was, it took time for me to settle in. The curtains in my room let in too much light, the humming of bugs and the clanging of my wind chime collection were too loud. I flipped my pillow over twice. The sheet was too heavy. I was too cold without it. I got up and shut the window. The room became stuffy. I gave up and decided to watch some television.

Children are instinctually afraid of closets in the dark of night, a portent of evil lurking in the background of shadows. It isn’t an irrational fear, for monsters come from closets. It’s not something easily forgotten, or a fate yet known. As young adults, some of them venture into their closets, some come out. Sean danced with his.

Haven’t you guessed by now? I’m a monster. I don’t hide under your bed or in your closet. I don’t lurk in dark corners or only come out at night.

I’ve always been a very private individual. For a lot of reasons. But mainly one. The man I lived with for all that time. The monster in the closet who I protected.

The future is just the ultimate monster in the closet, the great unknown

Shutting monsters in the closet doesn’t make them disappear. The thing about monsters is that they’re patient. They can sit forever, just waiting for someone to open the door.

The monsters don’t live in my closet or under my bed. They are the collection of thoughts inside my head.

When we hold onto fear and pain after something traumatic has passed, we do it as a sort of safety net. We falsely believe that if we constantly remind ourselves of all the terrible things that we didn’t see coming, we can avoid them. Not only does this not work, but it also makes you less efficient at responding to them if they do. Because most of the time, you’re so busy worrying about monsters in the closet, you forget to address the actual things that will erode you over time: your health, your relationships, your long-term vision, your finances, your thoughts.

That's what any parent would think. Closet Monster Syndrome, my mother called it. She would prescribe 200 cc's of hot chocolate, followed by bed rest." Alicia smiled. "She was a nurse, too." "Is

There's monsters in every closet.  You don't get rid of monsters by shining a fucking flashlight on them, though.  You know how you deal with monsters?  It's simple.  I'm going to fucking tell you exactly how right now.  You become a bigger monster. 

Her one job as a parent was to protect her children from monsters. The ones under the bed, the ones in the closet, the ones hiding in the dark. Instead, she’d invited the monster into her home and been too weak to stop it from taking whatever it wanted.

The previous governess had used various monsters and bogeymen as a form of discipline. There was always something waiting to eat or carry off bad boys and girls for crimes like stuttering or defiantly and aggravatingly persisting in writing with their left hand. There was always a Scissor Man waiting for a little girl who sucked her thumb, always a bogeyman in the cellar. Of such bricks is the innocence of childhood constructed. Susan’s attempts at getting them to disbelieve in the things only caused the problems to get worse. Twyla had started to wet the bed. This may have been a crude form of defense against the terrible clawed creature that she was certain lived under it. Susan had found out about this one the first night, when the child had woken up crying because of a bogeyman in the closet. She’d sighed and gone to have a look. She’d been so angry that she’d pulled it out, hit it over the head with the nursery poker, dislocated its shoulder as a means of emphasis and kicked it out of the back door. The children refused to disbelieve in the monsters because, frankly, they knew damn well the things were there. But she’d found that they could, very firmly, also believe in the poker. Now she sat down on a bench and read a book. She made a point of taking the children, every day, somewhere where they could meet others of the same age. If they got the hang of the playground, she thought, adult life would hold no fears. Besides, it was nice to hear the voices of little children at play, provided you took care to be far enough away not to hear what they were actually saying. There were lessons later on. These were going a lot better now she’d got rid of the reading books about bouncy balls and dogs called Spot. She’d got Gawain on to the military campaigns of General Tacticus, which were suitably bloodthirsty but, more importantly, considered too difficult for a child. As a result his vocabulary was doubling every week and he could already use words like “disemboweled” in everyday conversation. After all, what was the point of teaching children to be children? They were naturally good at it.

It’s gonna be all right,” he told her, and rocked her, not really believing it, but it was the litany, it was the Psalter, the voice of the adult calling down the black well of years into the miserable pit of terrorized childhood; it was what you said when things went wrong; it was the nightlight that could not banish the monster from the closet but perhaps only keep it at bay for a little while; it was the voice without power that must speak nevertheless.

Daddy, I think there's a monster in my closet! No, son, it's just Floyd Peterson. Oh... okay. Good night.

All monsters should live under bridges or in closets or at the ends of dead-end roads.

Children assume that monsters dwell in closets. Pubescent literati know it is the gateway to magic lands.

Plots set in the future are about what people fear in the present. They’re not about the future at all. The future is just the ultimate monster in the closet, the great unknown.

I've never been afraid of the dark. I've never needed reassurance that there isn't a monster in my closet or under my bed. Perhaps it's because a part of me always knew I was one.

They found what was waiting on the other side: a pleasant room with a horrible monster in it. Apparently, when they were younger, they had the same monster in their closet, and when their parents chased it away, the monster pined until it could finally call to them to come through the broken doors to the Land of the Monsters, where they could be a family forever. The book ended with the implication that now the children would become monsters, too, and would eventually leave the Land of Monsters to find closets, and children, of their own.

Monsters are real. They’re real, and they’re capable of doing the unspeakable. And they don’t hide under beds or in closets—they hide in plain sight. You just don’t always notice them.

When I was a little girl, I used to hide in my closet. The space was dust-covered and dark, and it smelled like mothballs. But it was my sanctuary from the monsters outside. When I got older and I would have to hide, I used to fantasize that I lived in a house where the closets trapped all the monsters and where I would be safe in my bed. That I lived in a house with parents I could look up to and admire, and one day they would become the subjects of a speech I wrote about how they changed my life for the better. I didn’t live in that kind of house. But the monsters I hid from shaped who I’ve become by teaching me that kindness and love are things that should be given freely. They taught me who I never want to be. That’s why they’re important to me today.

Since we have been primed to think of the subconscious as a closet of monsters to be avoided, we tend to fear it. Thus, we avoid the unconscious storage room where the creative solution is hidden.

That was a hard and terrible thing to acknowledge, the idea that even if she managed to get away, that he would haunt her always—the boogeyman in the closet, the monster under the bed, the creature tapping at her window.

And below them, Toll-by-Night set about folding itself away, like a stilt-legged monster into a closet. Its inhabitants crept back into the unwanted places, the crannies and cellars and forgotten attics, and locked themselves in. A bugle blew. A silver jingling swept through the town, sealing away all bad reputations and bitter-tasting names. Another bugle sounded. And day swept in like a landlord, not knowing that it was only a guest in night's town.

You don’t need to be afraid of the dark. Monsters don’t lurk there. They don’t hide under beds or inside closets. They’re right out in the open where you can see them as clear as day. Where you can look into their eyes and see their evil.

Solomon breathed a sigh of relief ever so slightly, thankful that the cricket had not been eaten. Not that he was concerned for the cricket being eaten. No, he was simply relieved that the voice in the closet, which could be a monster, had not eaten it. If the voice had eaten the cricket, that meant that he was a monster that eats things in the night, and Solomon too could be eaten. Being eaten by a closet monster was perhaps the scariest thing that could happen to an elephant, not to mention a cricket, as far as Solomon was concerned.

You don’t need to be afraid of the dark. Monsters don’t lurk there. They don’t hide under beds or inside closets. They’re right out in the open where you can see them as clear as day. Where you can look into their eyes and see their evil. Don’t you know that?” “Are you a monster?

Perhaps the stories are wrong. Maybe monsters aren’t lying in wait underneath beds or inside closets to devour unsuspecting children. Maybe the monsters are just hiding from a human world that would do monstrous things if it ever found out the truth: that we live beside them in plain sight.

Sonnet of Conspiracy Perhaps there's a monster under the bed, Perhaps there's a boogeyman in the closet. Perhaps they're sterilizing kids with vaccine, Perhaps they're controlling all with a radio set. Yes our science is well advanced, But not advanced enough to control minds. Besides mind-control needs no fancy tech, When people are run by smartphone chimes. Tales like these are good for entertainment, Amongst a bunch of kindergarteners. But being adult requires the use of reason, Without submitting to prehistoric fears. Treating insecurities with common sense, Anyone can manifest civilized sentience.

Fear is not shaking, knowing that you are going to be harmed. Fear is not sweating profusely because you can’t do anything else. Fear is not hiding under your bed or under your sheets or in your closet because you know the monsters are trying to find you. Fear is not having nightmares about these monsters because you know you cannot escape them. Fear is not anything I have experienced in my sixteen years of life. Fear is the feeling that a block of ice has been dropped into your stomach and it’s slowly melting sending poison coursing through your veins, rooting you to where you stand. Fear is knowing that there is nothing you can do about your current situation. You can’t run or hide or escape even in your dreams. Fear is not the knowledge that you’re going to be hurt, but the knowledge that you can do nothing to stop what is coming. Fear is learning that the person you love most has been dying for you over and over again because they value your life over their own.

Kids in the real world think monsters come from the closet or under the bed. Which I suppose is true. Mostly. But the fact is, monsters can come from anywhere with a flat surface. We just need a door, and if it’s a flat plane, it can be a door. Chew on that the next time you’re reading a book about demonic possession. Pages are flat planes, too.

Do you remember bedtime as a child? I was terrified of the dark. I was terrified of the closed closet door that surely cracked open when I wasn't looking and spewed out ghouls and devils. I took care that no arms or legs protruded from the bed. I sometimes slept with the covers over my head. Sweltering, panting, barely breathing. Not even my hair exposed, lest a monster discover and devour me. I remember begging my father to check under the bed. I remember trying to explain how some monsters had invisibility cloaks. He would kiss my cheek and switch off the light. We stop looking under the bed once we realize that the monsters are inside us. It's funny how they transform. Suddenly they don't mind daylight. Suddenly they dress nicely, speak our language, and share our customs. They sit next to us on the metro and jog around our neighborhoods. They slip things into our drinks at parties and offer us jobs. Sometimes we spot them, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we even do the unthinkable: we invite them to our bed. As adults, we burn down the sanctuaries we created as children. Our inner child freaks out, but its screams are drowned by our moans as our monsters bring us to orgasm.

I lean against the frame, letting his words rake over my skin and soak up the scene in front of me. The items of clothing from my closet back home, all the scrap sheets of music and peppermints—empty and not—everything I’ve been hoarding for years, because of this obsessive fucking thought that they’d one day become important. That I’d need them for something other than to scratch the weird itch in my brain. Things I carry with me, like phantoms I can’t possibly get rid of, no matter how hard I try.

I see poisoners—so calculating, so cold-blooded—as most like the villains of our horror stories. They’re closer to that lurking monster in the closet than some drug-impaired crazy with a gun. I don’t mean to dismiss the latter—both can achieve the same awful results. But the scarier killer is the one who thoughtfully plans his murder ahead, tricks a friend, wife, lover into swallowing something that will dissolve tissue, blister skin, twist the muscles with convulsions, knows all that will happen and does it anyway.

I should warn you, Edie. I’m not the prince in this fairy tale. I’m the villain. The poisonous apple, the flame-breathing monster.” “Good. I always enjoyed the broken in the fairy tales better. The apple always looked shinier because I knew it could destroy me. The villain was just damaged and misunderstood, and the monster…” I leaned on my tiptoes, biting the tip of his ear, just barely reaching his impossible height. “I always kept the door to my closet a little ajar as a kid to make sure it could come out in case it wanted to play.

As a child, I never believed in “monsters”. No one ever had to check my closet or under my bed for these mystical creatures. I was unconcerned with these childish beliefs because I knew the real truth: monsters are real, and not the mystical kind. These monsters are everywhere. They sit next to me when I don’t want them to. They stare at me and sneak little glimpses of me when they think they can get away with it. They wonder why I don’t join them, why I am not a part of their ancient circle. They feed on lies, perversion, pain, and on other’s [each other’s] weaknesses. I live amongst them, grew up beside them, watch them; and I bear no obligation to these monsters.

We all have skeletons in our closets, they say. My family included. But ours hid in the attic, not the closet. They hid among the journals, photos, shoe boxes, wedding dress, and board games. Ours were tumbling out. I had to clean up the mess alone—hide the evidence. If this is what new beginnings looked like, I didn’t want one. If starting over meant facing the ghosts that haunt the past, I wanted to keep the past. But there was no going back. I knew too much. I’d seen the bones. I’d met the monsters. My parents wore masks to make them look happy, to hide secrets, to tell us they loved us. Even I wore a mask to hide my own monster. But now the masks had fallen off, and sliding them back on wouldn’t hide the truth anymore. What was seen could not be unseen. The new beginning was here to be faced, like it or hate it.

At the Afghan restaurant today I identified in myself a burbling in my reservoir of annoyance when I realized that people were going around the buffet in the wrong direction, which was, the annoyance felt, a kind of wretched incivility, a sign of our imminent plummet into lawlessness and misery. The delight is that I can identify that annoyance quickly now, and poke a finger in its ribs (I have shaken up the metaphor, you are right, how annoying), and so hopped into line with all the other deviants, and somehow we all got our food just fine. Same when Stephanie doesn’t turn on the light over the stove to cook, or leaves the light in her bathroom on, or leaves cabinet or closet doors wide open, or doesn’t tighten the lids all the way, all of which the annoyance regards as, if not an obvious sign of sociopathy, indication of some genuine sketchiness. A problem. But somehow no one ever dies of these things, or is even hurt, aside from my sad little annoyance monster, who, for the record, never smiles and always wears a crooked bow tie.

This is my fault. I know it's my fault. I should never have let you get so comfortable. You started thinking of me as harmless. I'm safe. I'm the monster at the end of the book, the one that you run to when the bigger monsters start threatening to eat you, but that's not right, Toby, that's not right, you forget yourself. You forget me. I am the scariest thing that has ever gone bump in the night. I am what you knew, at the bottom of your un-formed child's heart, was lurking in the back of your closet. And what I'm telling you, right here and right now, is that you need to leave, because I'm afraid of what will happen if you don't." I stared at her, fighting the urge to take a step backwards. Something told me that retreating would mean showing weakness, and showing weakness would be a mistake. "I'm not scared of you. If you were going to kill me, you'd have done it a long time ago, and it wouldn't have been over a yes or no question." "Toby." She said my name gently, and with a deep centuries-long sorrow. "Who the fuck said I needed you to be afraid of me?" She took another step forward dropping her voice to a whisper: "Run.

He’s the monster in my closet that I should be afraid of. But all I want to do is open the door and join him inside.

I did it. I’d just faced down one of the monsters hiding at the back of my closet. And I won. There’s no way to describe how that felt. It was like I’d been living in the chilly shadow of my past for the past two years and now all of the sudden a chink of light was slicing across my face, warm and wonderful.

Spiritual unconsciousness is like being afraid of the dark. When we are in the dark, we can’t see properly. However, we can imagine all sorts of things. The boogeyman under the bed. A creature in the closet. We can create all sorts of monsters in our mind. But that is exactly the point. They only exist in our mind. If we turn on the light, everything looks different.

Those monsters in your closets and under your beds? They are just as real as us. The difference is that we fear what we don't understand, while they understand exactly, what we fear.

It’s about time you let yourself out of that motherfuckin’ closet.

Yeah, because they transform from aliens into monsters. First, little monsters who cry and throw tantrums, then to sex-crazed teenagers who think they are smarter than everyone else. That’s going to be the next eighteen years, Liam. I’m not like your mom. My patience will run out, and I am going to say or do something—” I kissed her. “There were days my mom was even scarier than my father . . . a lot of days, actually. However, my parents made it work, and we turned out fine.” “You’re a sex-crazed, closet smoker, who sells dope, crack, and smack for a living. Not to mention a murderer.

There is something almost subhuman about living the nocturnal life. You start to understand why all the paranormal creatures and fairytale beasts occupy the night. The darkness is for ghosts haunting old barns, monsters lurking in closets, and overtired people making terrible decisions. That is the natural order of things, and woe unto you who disobeys the rule of the night.

For so much of my life, I’d made Mom out to be a kind of villain. And now I was acting like her. Nothing compares to the fear that you’re becoming the monster in your closet.

We stopped looking in the shadows, when we realised that WE were the monsters that we are afraid of. I want to take these monsters, give them a voice and put them back under our beds, in our closets and in the shadows, back where we are most afraid of them.

Your mother’s dress suits you,” he said. “I hope you kept her chili recipe.

Doubt is the biggest monster to battle in my closet, it growls, it taunts, it whispers back everything that every other monster has ever slipped into my suitcase as I've travelled through life. Time to throw out the suitcase, and the monsters. I prefer to travel light, so I have chosen to pack only my dreams.

Rushing out the door on his way back to the street, he ran into someone with his shoulder. Turning to apologize to them, he stopped, horrified at what he saw. It was the white-eyed man he’d met a week ago. “Watch your back.” He said standing there just long enough for Raven to take in the meat between his teeth, the milky, nearly opaque color of his eyes and the madness within them. Then, after only a few seconds, he was gone, vanished into the crowd as if he had never existed. Certain his mind was playing tricks and tired of being terrified for his sanity, he headed down the street as fast as he could in pursuit. As he rushed through the tightly packed crowd, he saw others like the man he’d just seen, and each of their white eyes gazed blankly into his. A woman here, a hunched drifter there, shapes and faces that shifted and darted all around him. “Watch your back.” They hissed, and he tried to move faster, his heart racing and the nerves of his body jangling painfully with fear as he fought to get beyond them. Hands reached out for his clothes, pulling him in different directions as they tugged and he struggled to be free. Their fingers felt like talons clasped into the folds and gaps of his clothing, ripping and popping stitches in their fervor to gain some small grasp on his flesh beneath his jacket. Along with the horror of their cold, dead eyes, he could smell some strangeness—a sickly sweet smell of rot and decay only barely closeted by preserving fluids. The smell dug into his sinuses as their fingers and hands dug at him. He gagged, his teeth clenched tight as he exerted energy he didn’t really have. He pushed away from them and on through the empty space he saw at the end of this group of pedestrians. Many of whom mingled with what he now felt must be the dead, wholly unaware of why he flailed and pushed against them.

Would you shake hands with the monster that lives in your closet?

I have two sons. Jude is five, with dark, curly hair. He looks just like his mom. Moses is two, with bright eyes and a wide smile. I love watching my boys play together. They are never anxious. Never depressed. But every once in a while, they wake up in the middle of the night scared. Sometimes it’s a bad dream. Other times it’s a monster in the closet (that turns out to be a blanket). You know the drill. When they wake up crying, all they need to calm down is a minute or two in my arms. Once they feel that security—that safety, the fact that dad is present—they are fine. The implications are obvious. Jesus calls us to have faith like a child. I wonder if that means we need to trust God like my sons trust me. To climb up into his arms, take a deep breath, and know we are safe, as long as we are with him. I sleep much better these days. It still takes me a while to fall asleep at times. Like my boys, I still wake up with fears, concerns, thoughts that are out of control. My heart still picks up pace. My mind begins to race. But I’m learning to call out to God, to remember my place, and to take my thoughts captive. I’m learning to take a deep breath, to dwell on his scriptures, and to learn from my boys. After all, when was the last time you met a stressed-out five year old? I don’t think they exist. When was the last time you met a stressed-out child of God? They are all over the place.

As she moved toward the water closet, I asked her a question. A very old question. “Valka,” I said, and cleared my throat. “Am I a good man?” She turned then—hands on the door frame—and surveyed me a long time. What did she see with those inhuman eyes? Those eyes that saw everything without exception, without distortion? A smile split her face. A true smile, brighter even than her pity had been bright. “You’re still asking that question?” she managed to say, laughter cracking her words. “After all this time?” I could only blink at her. “Do you not have your answer a hundred times over?” A brief tremor shook her arm, but she hid it behind her back and shook her head again. “Monsters don’t have doubts.

His words hissed to a stop, and I knew exactly why. As the roiling heat of Liam’s power appeared in the closet with us, my sorrow, fear, and regret no longer felt overwhelming. The ache in my chest eased, allowing me to breathe easier. “Am I interrupting something?” I jerked from Drake’s touch and cringed, knowing Liam would see it as a sign of guilt and believe there was something between Drake and me. “Do you knock?” Drake asked, dropping his hand. “Not when she sounds distressed.” Liam’s voice thundered behind me, the lights in my room flickering ominously.

I laugh. None of this is funny, but seeing my parents trying to be brave even when they’re scared is hilarious. It’s just one more thing about being an adult I’m not looking forward to. If I have kids someday and they tell me there’s a monster under their bed or in their closet, we’ll probably just have to move.

Mama always told me that secrets come out after sundown. She said that when the darkness of night crept into the corners of my room oily shadows would unfurl themselves from under my bed, while the crows sleeping in the tree outside my window would flutter to the pane’s sharp edge to tap at the cracks in the casement, and the monster in my closet would sigh, opening its eyes before it scratched at the closet door. I’d only have to be quiet and listen.

I knew the monster in my closet would take care of me. The monster would always love me, no matter what I did. The monster would never leave me.

...I was a Christian, a model student, a Good Girl. I couldn't be a monster. But something in me was disgusting, and I begged God to take it from me.

I pulled off my shirt and knew I wasn’t alone. “Did you really follow me to my bedroom?” I demanded, poking my head out of my closet to see Cassius. “Really?” “If she gets hurt, I will never forgive you,” he warned softly. “Obviously,” I snapped, unsurprised. “And if Raphael gets hurt, I’ll kill you. We’ll make it a whole fucking diplomatic incident.

The monsters don't live in my closet or under my bed. They are the collection of thoughts inside my head.

The monsters don’t live in my closet or under my bed. They are the collection of thoughts inside my head. 2:59

I used to be scared of monsters in my closet and aliens outside my window. Now I'm scared of men sitting on roof tops and walking past me on the street. There is nothing more human than monsters.

We're idiots. Creatures of denial who have learned not to be afraid of our closets. We need to see the monster in the room before we scream." -The End of the World Running Club

We’re idiots. Creatures of denial who have learned not to be afraid of our closets. We need to see the monster in the room before we scream.

I wasn’t a little girl afraid of monsters in her closet or under her bed. I was terrified of the monster that was supposed to love me! You were supposed to be protecting me from the people like you!” Holder

This monster we now speak of doesn’t hide in the shadows or under your bed. He does not reside in any closet or attic. He lives next door. Right there, living life, being just incredibly ordinary. There is one like him in every town. He is your friend, neighbor, church member, and dinner companion. He doesn’t know he is a monster. He sees nothing wrong with what he does. To him, you are the one who is different.

A boy with a normal childhood. No monsters in the closet. So that’s what he showed them.

Satan is the rock that hides our fears, insecurities, prejudices and violent tendency. Satan is humanity’s closet—the dark place we stuff the things that don’t fit in our living rooms, the things we don’t want to display. He is our collective blindspot—the space that doesn’t matter, the place that can’t be talked about. It’s the label we use to deny, denigrate, strip and punish. Nietzsche warned us of this danger in Beyond Good and Evil: One who fights with monsters should beware, lest he himself become thereby a monster. And if you peer long into an abyss, the abyss peers back into you.

The daughter of a family friend was abusing me when my parents brought us for overnight stays. It started the winter I was six, when I shared a bed with the girl. She was a year older than me. After lights out, I would feel her hands on me. It would start with tickling my back and then going into things that were extremely uncomfortable. Freezing became my defense mechanism, and to this day, when I panic, I freeze. We had an earthquake recently here in L.A., and instead of running for cover, I grabbed a bag of Cheetos and just stood there eating them. The second time she abused me, it was during a spring visit, and Ashlee also shared the bed. I lay between them, fiercely protecting my sister from this monster. I didn’t want her to feel as disgusting as I felt. For six years, I was abused by this girl during our family’s visits, which happened three times a year. Eventually it wasn’t just nighttime. She would get me to go into a closet with her, or just find a way to linger until we were alone. It got to the point that she would sneak into the bathroom to watch me shower. I did not know how to get away from her. She continued to try to sleep next to my little sister, and I would just scooch Ashlee over and get between them whenever she did. I never let her near Ashlee, but I also never screamed or told her to stop. I was confused, wondering if it was something that I wanted to keep going. Why am I not telling anybody? I would ask myself. Is it because it feels good? The irony is that I was protecting my abuser. I thought that if I named what she was doing, she would feel the shame I felt. And I wouldn’t have wished that on anybody.

Brynn, nobody’s as together as they seem. Everyone has skeletons in their closet and monsters under their bed.

If we don't talk about death, it becomes the monster in the closet, the hand that grabs your leg from underneath the bed. It becomes a fear that takes away from the quality of the time you have left. To live with low-grade anxiety about something you have no control over steals your happiness.

Aren’t we all like that though?” I asked him, wanting to cry, thinking of my most private, shameful thoughts. “Aren’t we all monsters filled with pain?” “Naaaaaaaah.” He shook his head. “Not really.” And the way he said it, “Naaaaaaaah,” like I’d asked him if swallowing my gum could kill me, if ghosts could see me in the bathroom, if bedroom closets were portals to another dimension, it made me feel better about the whole world and the way it felt to live in it. I dropped my head in my hands and cried, surrendered all my pain to Ralph.

Nothing compares to the fear that you're becoming the monster in your closet.