Quotes About Introspection

Stop working so hard at being interesting and focus on what's outside yourself. There are universes out there that need to be explored. And, an interested person is extremely interesting.

I went to Columbia University because I knew I wanted to go to a school that was academically rigorous. I prided myself on getting good grades, but I also hated it.

When I left university, I idled around without focus for much too long.

None are more unjust in their judgments of others than those who have a high opinion of themselves.

You look back and reflect and there are things you could do better - even when there's been an 'experience that was unjust.

Everybody is probably guilty of something. I'm sure that if anyone looked into my heart long enough, they could say, you know, 'Bill had some unkind thoughts back in second grade.'

People who are mean or unkind or rigid - think about it - cannot laugh at themselves.

People remain unknowable to us, even people that we're very close to. And I think the same goes for our own selves.

The interpretation of our reality through patterns not our own, serves only to make us ever more unknown, ever less free, ever more solitary.

Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists.

I'm not working now, so I'm sort of facing the unknown.

I like to watch mankind in its futile attempt to understand the unknown, when they don't even understand that which they know.

Many women get involved with a man that you pretty much know isn't suitable and you're kind of breaking your rules, but he's attractive in some unknown way. And then he doesn't even realize what a sacrifice you're making by being with him and he dumps you!

An abiding preoccupation for me is how much of our lives are invisible and unknown by other people, like the Chekhov story 'The Lady With the Little Dog.'

If you're well-known, you're at the risk of becoming your own character. When you're alone, as a writer, you have to be unknown, putting it all on the paper.

It is of no use to discover our own faults and infirmities unless the discovery prompts up to amendment.

I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine.

The way you get to know yourself is by the expressions on other people's faces, because that's the only thing that you can see, unless you carry a mirror about.

Obviously one must hold oneself responsible for the evil impulses of one's dreams. In what other way can one deal with them? Unless the content of the dream rightly understood is inspired by alien spirits, it is part of my own being.

Unless you're involved with thinking about what you're doing, you end up doing the same thing over and over, and that becomes tedious and, in the end, defeating.

I don't see the world unless I see it in ink.

Saying 'I'm wrong' is meaningless unless it comes from our heart, not just our lips. That often requires a genuine and profound change within ourselves, because we need to realize it's simply human nature and that everyone makes mistakes.

I found that quiet place in my home that is my place of refuge. I don't care if you got kids or if you are married. You got to find that one place that is your everybody-off-limit place: unless this place is on fire, or you need to go to the emergency room, don't disturb me. You can go to this place and cleanse, meditate, let God speak to you.

I tend to have a lot of jokes about ex-girlfriends. They always ask me if they will be the subject of a joke, and I always tell them they won't. Unless they do something crazy. They all tend to, so you know where that goes. There are no closed doors. The 'art' will suffer.