Quotes About Introspection

So," he said. "What's the difference between me and a whore?" He swallowed. "Am I a whore?" "No more than every married woman.

A middle-aged man who's probably down to jerking off every other day. A weary man of forty who's already seen everything come around twice, who let me fuck him that once in a hole where whole armies of men have doubtless passed.

Once I accepted my extravagant mendicancy I stumbled upon the sober, intelligent little boy I had once been. This was the kid with the sweet smile and an interest in all sorts of things, the boy with brushed hair and cloudless eyes, the child so whole he could forget himself: the birthday boy.

He thought to himself, I'll never be this perfect again, an idea that made him sad.

In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things

Although one might seem relatively gregarious, the real self is at the desk," she said. "It is a trial for relationships, for friendships. Every writer dreads losing the connection to the work, the momentum, and to keep it, you can't truly be sociable.

He never studied, not a paper, not a textbook . . . the books he reads are the people that come to him

The curtain of worldly desire must be ripped in half and I must look into my own soul and overcome the pit of hell. 'I am in hell,' I blurted to her. She almost struck me with her raised withered hand. After that it was banishment. I was sent to a sister house in Ballinasloe, silence and meditation, excused from all manual work, alone with myself, no patients to occupy the welter of my thoughts.

Strindberg came to the rescue. Why, he had asked her, did every woman he ever met have to bring her bloody mother into the bed, every bloody woman, including his own wife, Siri. "You have a wife," she had said.

motherless mothers with their skinless mysteries.

It's sad to know you've gone through it all, or most of it, without… that the one body you'v wrapped your arms around, the only skin you've ever known, is your own… and that's it's dry, and not warm.

Writers have this schizophrenic ability to both participate in their lives and, at the same time, observe themselves participating in their lives.

Stevie: (Not listening) That you can do these two things... and not understand how it... SHATTERS THE GLASS!!?? How it cannot be dealt with-how stop and forgiveness have nothing to do with it? and how I am destroyed? How you are? How I cannot admit it though I know it!? How I cannot deny it because I cannot admit it!? Cannot admit it, because it is outside of denying!?

Yes … but was I happy? Did I sit there and did contentment bathe me in its warm light?

Conversation enriches the understanding, but the school of genius is solitude.

I was never less alone than when by myself. Edward Gibbon

The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference of age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.

Having got into bed and turned out the light, I quietly burst into tears because I am not a good person. As they came and went for some minutes, I was concerned with the words following 'because' in the previous sentence, rewriting them over and over in my head until they seemed to be as close to the truth as it was possible for me to make them.

when I talk to people I really like to talk to them, and not just exchange pleasantries and wonder which of us is going to try to get away first. Most social occasions leave me less than enthralled.

We spend all our lives trying to avoid reality in one way or another. I've always had a rather strong sense of unreality. I feel other people exist in a way I don't.

The sky has grown completely black, It's time to think of turning back. Fall down, or scream, or rush about- There is no way of getting out.

If I'm working very hard, which is very seldom, the last thing I want to do in order to relax is to be with people and babbling away and so forth. So I go to the movies or read a book or watch any of my thousands of tapes upstairs.

Q: What are your sexual preferences? A: Well, I'm neither one thing nor the other particularly. Q: Why not? A: I am fortunate in that I am apparently reasonably undersexed or something. I know people who lead really outrageous lives. I've never said that I was gay and I've never said that I wasn't. A lot of people would say that I wasn't because I never do anything about it. What I'm trying to say is that I am a person before I am anything else.

I always feel that other people's lives are filled with meaning. You look at them on the street and think how real their lives must be. Of course, you also know that isn't true.