Quotes About Introspection

The only patient being treated by the writer is himself

You know what's at the heart of the misery of a breakdown? Me-itis. Microcosmosis. Drowning in the tiny tub of yourself

The sight of a coffin going into the ground can effect a great change of heart—all at once you find you are not so disappointed in this person who is dead—but what the sight of a coffin does for the mind in its search for the truth, this I don't profess to know.

A ses yeux, celui qui donnait des signes extérieurs de bonté était bon, celui qui donnait des signes extérieurs de loyauté était loyal. Celui qui donnait des signes extérieurs d'intelligence, intelligent. C'est ainsi qu'il n'avait jamais vu clair en sa fille, ni en sa femme, ni en sa seule et unique maîtresse – il était sans doute loin de voir clair en lui...

That people were manifold creatures didn't come as a surprise to the Swede, even if it was a bit of a shock to realize it anew when someone let you down. 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.

mi a helyes, mi az épelméj?, és ki vagyok én, hogy azt állíthassam, valaha is eleget tudtam ahhoz, hogy a helyeset lépjem?

So I said, and quickly reached for my glass so as to duck my disingenuous face and take a bitter drop of brandy on my tongue. But Lonoff had read my designing mind, all right; for when I came upon Babel's description of the Jewish writer as a man with autumn in his heart and spectacles on his nose, I had been inspired to add, "and blood in his penis," and had then recorded the words like a challenge—a flaming Dedalian formula to ignite my soul's smithy.

In human society, thinking's the greatest transgression of all.

Around three A.M., I left my bed and went to my desk, my head vibrant with the static of unelaborated thought.

Could he continue to maintain his sanity that long? He didn't know. That's why he was devouring two or three books a day - to remove himself every minute that he possibly could from the madness of this life.

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.

Something was on top of him that had called a halt to him. Something had turned him into a human platitude. Something had warned him: You must not run counter to anything.

It's never been easy to say what you really are, Mickey." "Oh, failure will do." "But at what?" "Failure at failing, for one.

The sad inventory of his domestic bounty.

If he no longer gave a shit, why did he give a shit?

Tivesse ele mantido um diário de dor, o único registro teria sido uma palavra: eu.

La mia mente divaga, - mi disse, un po' come se io fossi un medico passato di lí per informarmi sui suoi strani e inquietanti nuovi sintomi. - Arrivato in fondo alla pagina cerco di riassumere ciò che ho letto, e la mia mente è vuota: sono rimasto seduto in poltrona senza far niente. Certo, ho sempre letto i libri con la penna in mano, ma ora scopro che se non lo faccio, anche quando leggo una rivista, la mia attenzione non resta concentrata su quello che ho davanti a me.

pas la peine de creuser bien loin avec ces gens là, ils portent leur vieil inconscient en bandoulière

Her ubiquity and his constipation, my mother flying in through the bedroom window, my father reading the evening paper with a suppository up his ass . . . these, Doctor, are the earliest impressions I have of my parents, of their attributes and secrets.

All the great thoughts he had not reached were beyond enumeration; there was no bottom to what he did not have to say about the meaning of his life.

self-laceration is never more than a memory away

in truth nothing lives in me life my life.

I don't think you ever gave isolation a real shot. It's the best preparation I know of for death.

in truth nothing lives in me like my life.