Quotes About Introspection

I didn't know, I didn't know, I didn't know.

A room? A nice room? A beautiful room? A beautiful room with bath? Swing high, swing low, swing to and fro...This happened and that happened... And then the days came and I was alone.

There is no looking-glass here and I don't know what I am like now. I remember watching myself brush my hair and how my eyes looked back at me. The girl I saw was myself yet not quite myself. Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her. But the glass was between us - hard, cold and misted over with my breath. Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?

The rumble of the life outside was like the sound of the sea which was rising gradually around her.

At twenty-four she imagined with dread that she was growing old.

You are walking along a road peacefully. You trip. You fall into blackness. That's the past - or perhaps the future. And you know that there is no past, no future, there is only this blackness, changing faintly, slowly, but always the same.

I have arranged my little life.

Can I help it if my heart beats, if my hands go cold?

I try, but they always see through me. The passages will never lead anywhere, the doors will always be shut.

And then the days came when I was alone.

When we are in a corner with a coffee and a fine each he says: 'Do you know what I feel about you? I think you are very lonely. I know, because for a long time I was lonely myself. I hated people, I didn't want to see anyone. And one day I thought: No, this isn't the way. And now I go about a lot. I force myself to. I have a lot of friends; I'm never alone. Now I'm much happier.' That sounds pretty simple. I must try it when I get back to London. ...

I stopped going out; I stopped wanting to go out. That happens very easily. It's as if you had always done that - lived in a few rooms and gone from one to the other.

The fact is,' said Norah, 'that there's something wrong with our family. We're soft, or lazy, or something.' 

You shut the door and you pull the curtains and then it's as long as a thousand years and yet so soon ended.

If you think I minded, then you've never lived like that, plunged in a dream, when all the faces are masks and only the trees are alive and you can almost see the strings that are pulling the puppets. Close-up of human nature - isn't it worth something?

I thought I'd try to write her a life

Why are you sad?

Watching the red and yellow flowers in the sun thinking of nothing, it was as if a door opened and I was somewhere else, something else. Not myself any longer. I knew the time of day when though it is hot and blue and there are no clouds, the sky can have a very black look.

Moins j'ouvrirai la bouche, moins je ferai figure odieuse et cynique.

Je ne suis pas sûr d'avoir jamais éprouvé ce qu'on appelle le remords, mais si quelque chose s'en approche, c'est bien la pensée d'avoir côtoyé vingt ans ce chagrin sans le reconnaître.

Mais dès que je ne veux pas mentir à moi-même, je ne trouve en moi qu'un désir - et il est irréalisable: être loin, être seul, être tout à fait seul pendant des mois, réfléchir, me reprendre, sans mon argent, sans le soutien d'aucun être qui m'aime, pour voir si je vaux quelque chose, pour essayer mes forces, pour être sûr que lorsque j'aime, c'est bien réellement un libre choix!

C'est que la sincérité est effrayante; j'entends non pas celle qui dit aux autres leurs vérité, mais celle qui s'applique à nos propres pensées. Auprès des êtres qui nous touchent de près, nos aveux sont irréparables; nous sommes-nous découvertes en face d'eux, il faut que nous demeurions à nu le reste de nos jours, il n'y a plus d'abri ni d'ombre

Mais c'était des voyages d'aveugles, je veux dire des voyages où je restais emprisonné dans mon univers intérieur

La Solitude!...J'aurais mauvaise grâce à en craindre le visage, maintenant qu'il est fatigué et qu'il n'a plus ses belles promesses