The shame that tormented me was all the more corrosive for having no very clear origin: I didn't know why I felt so tainted, and worthless, and wrong-only that I did, and whenever I looked up from my books I was swamped by slimy waters rushing in from all sides.

If I were to sit down and count them, how many of my prayers were tainted by the seduction of greed? None, simply because nothing of that sort is a prayer.

In that moment, hell may have ascended,Or heaven may have descended only to save me and prove,What I carry is an exaggerated memory of an imagined beautiful love.This love is tainted with treachery; it will be my doom.

The victims of PTSD often feel morally tainted by their experiences, unable to recover confidence in their own goodness, trapped in a sort of spiritual solitary confinement, looking back at the rest of the world from beyond the barrier of what happened. They find themselves unable to communicate their condition to those who remained at home, resenting civilians for their blind innocence.The Moral Injury, New York Times. Feb 17, 2015

Knight, of course, felt that anyone's willing assistance tainted the whole thing. Either you are hidden or you're not, no middle ground. He wished to be unconditionally alone, exiled to an island of his own creation, an uncontacted tribe of one.

I was tainted. With her blood. Their blood. And the disease of my despair. There was no cleansing something so tainted. This was who I was now.This was War.

a fall from great innocence hurts the most to knowthat you are nowtainted