Why are some Elvis Costello lyrics way to true?

From the song ~This is Hell from the album Brutal Youth

It's not the torment of the flames
That finally see your flesh corrupted
It's the small humiliations that your memory piles up

There isn't a one of you that won't agree with me on this one...Don't you always remember the stupid little things that you've done in your life. All those damn things that you think about years and years later...Those are the things that give you nightmares..and pop into your mind 10 years later as you are driving to work.

Big things..well when you have done them..you get over them faster...cos most likely they are public knowledge..therefore once you are over it...you are over it...It's those stupid little things that grate on your mind...and make you think "How could I have been so stupid" You are constantly wondering..."How many people know I did such an idiotic thing" Big things..well you know the world knows what a fuck up you are...and eventually you come to live with it...

I'm always amazed at when those small humiliations crop up..Like I said...when driving..before bed is the worst..cos you can't sleep...during downtime at work..when you have no one to talk too...which only goes to prove...that This IS Hell....