Quotes About Introspection

That is the greatness of literature, and its paradox, that in reading about fictional others we end up reading about ourselves. Sometimes this unwitting self-examination provokes smiles of recognition, while other times, . . . it provokes shudders of worry and denial. Either way, we are the wiser, we are existentially thicker.

she looks at herself, at her bloodshot eyes, the small veins like red scattered roads and branching streams.

We're fine together, just like this: Our silence protects us from ourselves

tout compte fait, je crois que mon tort était de ne pas avoir eu le courage de mes convictions. Je pouvais me trouver toutes les excuses du monde, aucune d'elles ne me donnerait raison. En réalité maintenant que j'avais perdu la face , je me cherchais un masque. Pareil à un défiguré, je me cachais derrière mes pansements qui me servaient aussi de moucharabiehs. Je regardais en cachette la vérité des autres, en abusais pour distancer la mienne

Getting old," I said with some restraint, "means to be done with compassion.

La complexité humaine ne se réduit à aucun principe de causalité.

Un des effets du dérèglement sentimental est que plus rien ne glisse. Tout devient signe, tout est matière à décryptage.

What stuff is a man made of, who has freed himself of his wounds?

I accept that I've lost the game of life in the same way that one loses at solitaire.

Again she lost herself in the talk, and again her words seemed to be warming her whole body.

The woman was silent, her eyes on the floor. Shimamura had come to a point where he knew he was only parading his masculine shamelessness, and yet it seemed likely enough that the woman was familiar with the failing and need not be shocked by it. He looked at her. Perhaps it was the rich lashes of the downcast eyes that made her face seem warm and sensuous. She shook her head very slightly, and again a faint blush spread over her face.

I could not bear the silences when the drum stopped. I sank down into the depths of the sound of the rain.

Twenty years old, I had embarked on this trip to Izu heavy with resentment that my personality had been permanently warped by my orphan's complex and that I would never be able to overcome a stifling melancholy. So I was inexpressibly grateful to find that I looked like a nice person as the world defines the word. -from The Dancing Girl of Izu

oricat de bland si bun ar fi omul, tot are cugetul framantat dintr-o pricina sau alta.

De mon côté, je t'en ai beaucoup voulu, et puis je me suis fait des reproches, mais dans cette vie misérable que nous menions, nous, Japonais, je me suis aperçu qu'il fallait avoir de l'empathie pour notre propre jeunesse.

Cum o fi oare sentimentul de singur?tate la animale?

The course of one's life is a difficult thing. -from Diary of My Sixteenth Year

Why had God created man's face so that he might not see it himself? 'Suppose you could see your own face, would you lose your mind? Would you become incapable of acting?' Most probably man had evolved in such a way that he could not see his own face. Maybe dragonflies and praying mantises could see their own faces.

Tu eÈ™ti singurul care nu-È›i vezi propria fa??. ÎÈ›i atingi zilnic figura convins fiind c? imaginea reflectat? ar fi cea pe care o vezi direct. Ky?ko r?mase un timp pe gânduri, întrebându-se ce sens o avea oare faptul c? Dumnezeu i-a f?cut pe oameni astfel încât s? nu-È™i poat? vedea chipul.

Me temo que no es tan sencillo. Haces demasiado caso de tu propio sentimentalismo y de tu descontento por no ser capaz de morir.

Estoy intentando pensar como los ancianos que están más tristes que yo

You think I'm drunk and talking nonsense? I'm not. I would know she was being well taken care of, and I could go pleasantly to seed here in the mountains. It would be a fine, quiet feeling.

Was it as if a girl sound asleep, saying nothing, hearing nothing, said everything to and heard everything from an old man who, for a woman, was no longer a man?

He pampered himself with the somewhat whimsical pleasure of sneering at himself through his work, and it may well have been from such a pleasure that his sad little dream world sprang.