Quotes About Introspection

I also liked to look around at the houses surrounding the park and wonder about the people who filled them, what kinds of marriages they had and how they loved or hurt each other on any given day, and if they were happy, and whether they thought happiness was a sustainable thing.

You need to learn to live with yourself, not others," he went on. "That's the difficult part. When you learn to accept your own nature, it will start to feel peaceful, not frantic.

If the raging waters had reached out to swallow me, I would have let them. I wanted to die that day—I did—and there'd been other times, too. Not many, but they were there, and as I watched Ernest twitch in an uneasy sleep, I couldn't help wondering if we all had them. And if so, if we survived them, was it by chance alone? Hours

Strolling, I felt the dark tug at me, and a pleasant itch to be out of my dress, out of my skin even.

I rarely knew what Jock was thinking. He worked hard, as

It was possible that all men were difficult to read, but I had to live with Jock through every long

my doubt is loud,

There was a feeling, as you sat and ate your nice sandwich or had your tea, that you were on the slowly tipping edge of nothingness and might fall forward at any moment, and that if you did, it was possible that nothing would know you'd ever been there at all. Jim

Because it's not always easy to know how to live.

The surrender in it seemed to have cut new lines around his brown eyes.

More and more a bell tolled through me. It woke me up early and sometimes in the still middle of the night, sending a cold chill up over the surface of my skin. What have I done? Can I still mend this? Can I free myself? Most

I wasn't nearly so clever. More and more I found myself at a loss for words and didn't want to hear other people talking either. Their conversations seemed false and empty. I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.

Who knows what anyone deserves? We like to play judge and jury, but we're all a rotten mess under our skins.

what I'd really like to know is how it feels to be on my own. Not someone's daughter or wife, I mean…but my own person." "Oh." It seemed I'd surprised him. "There isn't a lot of that kind of thinking around here." "Of course there is," I told him, trying to draw a smile. "It's just usually a man who's doing it.

I never thought I'd get married," I told Boy as he poured for us. Scotch spilled into the squat glasses with reassuring lapping noises. "I should have left well enough alone." "You don't need to explain.

Was my happiness so completely tied to him now that I could only feel like myself when he was near? I had no idea.

We can only go the limits of ourselves-I've learned that if nothing else. Anything more and we give too much away. Then we're not good for anyone.

Those things are as real as anything else, though, and I'll have to fly through them. Straight through the sickening dips and air pockets, because you can't chart a course around anything you're afraid of. You can't run from any part of yourself, and it's better that you can't.

I think I could turn and live with animals,' " he read aloud, "they are so placid and self-contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins….

because you can't chart a course around anything you're afraid of. You can't run from any part of yourself, and it's better that you can't. Sometimes I've thought it's only our challenges that sharpen us, and change us, too—a

Maybe I've been unfair with her from the beginning, seeing her in a mirror and hating myself. She's been struggling to do the right thing, even when her own hurt has made that harder than it should ever

The sensitive readers, they have a certain look. You can al. most smell it on them, that they need books to feel okay.

She wouldn't have seen any of the dinginess, because no one ever does until they're on he outside of a place, looking in.

You need to learn to live with yourself, not others," he went on. "That's the difficult part. When you learn to accept your own nature, it will start to feel peaceful, not frantic. Maybe then you'll stop throwing yourself at such terrible choices.