Quotes About Introspection

È mai possibile che questi individui siano attrezzati di tutto il macchinario necessario, un cervello, una spina dorsale, e le quattro aperture per le orecchie e gli occhi - attrezzatura, Signora Nimkin, che può sbalordire quasi quanto la Tv a colori - eppure viversi tutta l'esistenza senza la minima idea di quelli che sono i sentimenti e i desideri di una persona qualsiasi al di fuori di loro stessi?

I wouldn't so much as stick my head in a pool hall. Oh, look, this is as far as I go explaining what I am and am not like. I will not explain myself one more time. I will not make an inventory of my attributes for people or mention my goddamn sense of duty. I will not take one more round of his ridiculous, nonsensical crap!" Whereupon

The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong.

Look, I've got more personalities than I can use already. All you are is one too many.

But by the third year he had come to wonder whether Laura's purpose wasn't the shield behind which he was still hiding his own, even from himself.

The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that--well, lucky you.

I left the front stoop on Leslie Street, ate of the fruit of the tree of fiction, and nothing, neither reality nor myself, has been the same since.

I'll be curious to see how we all come out someday. It could be an interesting story. You're not so nice and polite in your fiction, he said. You're a different person.

One has periods of ghastliness. And then long periods of sort of quiet and love.

I'm looking at myself," he said, ecstatically, "except it's you.

But it is INTERESTING trying to get a handle on one's own subjectivity--something to think about, to play around with, and what's more fun than that?

Sembrava non capire o, anche in un momento di stanchezza, non ammettere che avere dei limiti non era poi una cosa così vergognosa, e che lui stesso non era una casa di pietra di centosettant'anni, il cui peso gravasse su imperturbabili travi di quercia: che era, insomma, qualcosa di più transitorio e misterioso.

Everything runs away, beginning with who you are, and at some indefinable point you come to half understand that the ruthless antagonist is yourself.

Meneer Portnoy,' zei ze terwijl ze haar knapzak optilde, 'u bent alleen maar een jood die een hekel heeft aan zichzelf.' 'Ah, maar Naomi, dat zijn misschien juist de beste.

Lo malo de la vida es que no sabes realmente si es un proceso descendente, no sabes en absoluto de qué se trata.

Simple was never that simple. Still, the self-questioning did take some time to reach him. And if there's anything worse than self-questioning coming too early in life, it's self-questioning coming too late.

There is no protest to be lodged against loneliness—not all the bombing campaigns in history have made a dent in it.

the complete man - as unimpressive as he is unimpressed

Yes, alone we are, deeply alone, and always, in store for us, a layer of loneliness even deeper. There is nothing we can do to dispose of that. No, loneliness shouldn't surprise us, as astonishing to experience as it may be. You can try turning yourself inside out, but all you are then is inside out and lonely instead of inside in and lonely.

What I'm saying, Doctor, is that I don't seem to stick my dick up these girls, as much as I stick it up their backgrounds - as though through fucking I will discover America.

What was astonishing to him was how people seemed to run out of their own being, run out of whatever the stuff was that made them who they were and, drained of themselves, turn into the sort of people they would once have felt sorry for.

Sì, siamo soli, profondamente soli, e in serbo per noi, sempre, c'è uno strato di solitudine ancora più profondo. Non c'è nulla che possiamo fare per liberarcene. No, la solitudine non dovrebbe stupirci, per sorprendente che possa essere farne l'esperienza. Puoi cercare di tirar fuori tutto quello che hai dentro, ma allora non sarai altro che questo: vuoto e solo anziché pieno e solo.

Llega un momento, como me llegó a mí hace unos meses, en que se halla uno en tal estado de desamparo y confusión, que no logra comprender lo que otrora resultaba obvio: por qué hago lo que hago, por qué vivo donde vivo, por qué comparto mi vida con quien la comparto.

I know the kind of man I am and the kind of writer. I have my own kind of bravery, and please, let's leave it at that.