Quotes About Introspection

The theme of the book is simple: a man is dying: you feel him sinking throughout the book; his thought and his memories pervade the whole with greater or lesser distinction (like the swell and fall of uneven breathing), now rolling up this image, now that, letting it ride in the wind, or even tossing it out on the shore, where it seems to move and live for a minute on its own and presently is drawn back again by grey seas where it sinks or is strangely transfigured.

If only it were possible to juicily belch up the life one's lived, chew it anew and gulp it down, and then once more to roll it with a fat, ox-like tongue, to squeeze from its eternal dregs the former sweetness of crisp grass, drunk with the morning dew and the bitterness of lilac leaves!

And yet I have been fashioned so painstakingly,' thought Cincinnatus as he wept in the darkness. 'The curvature of my spine has been calculated so well, so mysteriously. I feel, tightly rolled up in my calves, so many miles that I could yet run in my lifetime. My head is so comfortable.' A clock struck a half, pertaining to some unknown hour. (Invitation to a beheading)

The Goldsworth castle became particularly solitary after that turning point at dusk which resembles so much the nightfall of the mind. Stealthy

No wonder tobacco shops have a predilection for corners, for

For I do not exist: There exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me.

I simply cannot get used to the nightly betrayal of reason, humanity, genius.

me pregunto si fue entonces, en el resplandor de aquel verano remoto, cuando empezó a hendirse mi vida.

And yet I have been fashioned so painstakingly," thought Cincinnatus as he wept in the darkness. "The curvature of my spine has been calculated so well, so mysteriously. I feel, tightly rolled up in my calves, so many miles that I could yet run in my lifetime. My head is so comfortable Ã¢â'¬Â¦Ã¢â'¬Â The clock struck a half, pertaining to some unknown hour.

Oh no, I do not gloat over my own person, I do not get all hot wrestling with my soul in a darkened room; I have no desires, save the desire to express myself — in defiance of all the world's muteness.

The problem lies not with the characters within the novel, but with the reader itself.

I found Dolores Haze at the kitchen table, consuming a wedge of pie, with her eyes fixed on her script. They rose to meet mine with a kind of celestial vapidity.

nale?aÅ'a jednak do tych kobiet, które Å'Ä…czÄ… w sobie zdrowÄ… urodÄ™ z histerycznÄ… Å'zawliwoÅ›ciÄ…, wybuchy liryczne z bardzo praktycznym, banalnym myÅ›leniem, podÅ'y charakter z sentymentalizmem, ospaÅ'Ä… bierno?? z trze?wÄ… umiejÄ™tnoÅ›ciÄ… wysyÅ'ania bli?nich na poszukiwanie wiatru w polu.

and he, Hugh Person....began to undress her in the motels of his mind

Complacency is a state of mind that exists only in retrospect; it has to be shattered before ascertained.

I felt that way not because I never once discovered any palpable hard young throat to crush among the masculine mutes that flickered somewhere in the background; but because it was to me overwhelmingly obvious (a favorite expression with my aunt Sybil) that all varieties of high school boys - from the perspiring nincompoop whom holding hands thrills, to the self-sufficient rapist with pustules and a souped-up car - equally bored my sophisticated young mistress.

the artist in me has been given the upper hand over the gentleman.

My habit of being silent when displeased, or, more exactly, the cold and scaly quality of my displeased silence, used to frighten Valeria out of her wits. She used to whimper and wail, saying 'Ce qui me rend folle, c'est que je ne sais à quoi tu penses quand tu es comme ça.' I tried being silent with Charlotte – and she just chirped on, or chucked my silence under the chin. An astonishing woman!

behind the awful juvenile clichés, there was in her a garden and a twilight, and a palace gate

I am trying to describe these things not to relive them in my present boundless misery, but to sort out the portion of hell and the portion of heaven in that strange, awful, maddening world...

Only experts, for experts, should probe a mind's misery.

Before letting go he looked down. Some kind of hasty preparations were under way there: the window reflections gathered together and leveled themselves out, the whole chasm was seen to divide into dark and pale squares, and at the instant when Luzhin unclenched his hand, at the instant when icy air gushed into his month, he saw exactly what kind of eternity was obligingly and inexorably spread out before him.

her husband had such a soothing capacity for showing how silent a man could be if he strictly avoided comments on the weather.

And I have toyed with many pseudonyms for myself before I hit on a particularly apt one. There are in my notes "Otto Otto" and "Mesmer Mesmer" and "Lambert Lambert," but for some reason I think my choice expresses the nastiness best.